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Post by bunnyscfc on Oct 26, 2024 12:45:27 GMT
Here's the full article for Mundial magazine. A long read but it was heavily edited online, and so wanted to put the 5000 words on for context for Stokies. I know there'll be errors and daft opinions in there....
Saturday 5th May 2018: The day that Stoke City were relegated from the Premier League. I wasn’t at The bet365 Stadium watching our defeat to Crystal Palace that day. I was near Boston, watching my lad’s Under 10’s Stoke City team win a trophy.
Our demotion to the second tier came as I went pinker, pinker, and pinker under a blazing Lincolnshire (unfortunately not New England, USA) sky - anything but the “wet and windy Tuesday night in Stoke”. Indeed, for a year or so, it had been Stoke who couldn’t “do it on wet and windy Tuesday night in Stoke” – and Jesus H Christ, I have always hated that
particular anecdote since it was first muttered.
It was a surreal afternoon. On the one hand watching my lad winning his first trophy wearing the beloved stripes, whilst two hours west the first team were fulfilling many a Stoke fan’s prophecy. We all saw relegation coming, apart from those who could actually do something about it. I felt sad of course, but the long-held expectation of doom negated the immediate suffering and any real bitterness. I felt numb, with the last rites were administered with the team actually getting clapped off the pitch. Thank God I wasn’t there, as I don’t applaud failure. They’d have got the double-barrel treatment they deserved. My overriding emotion was joy for my lad as we drove home.
Stoke City’s decade with the big boys ended when we made the totally predictable decision to appoint Paul Lambert as our new manager in January 2018. A nice bloke I’m sure, and I bet he helps old ladies across the road and cuts folks hedges for his neighbours, but for what we needed at that time it was the equivalent of going into a brothel and asking for a hug. Probably the worst decision made by Stoke City in my 49 years of supporting them.
The expected relegation was also the final nail in another tag that we had been given which did the rounds in the Six Towns and beyond…..although ‘Stokealona’ had disappeared long, long before The Eagles sent us to The Championship.
Again, Stokealona was a tag that grated with some Stokies, and I too found it both cheesy and lazy. But at last, we were mentioned in conversations about the beautiful game rather than attritional football, back fours consisting solely of centre halves, Pulisball and Rory’s throw-ins. Not that I was unhappy about us making the humble throw-in sexy or winning games in any way that we could. My biggest hate in football – and there are lots – is football snobbery. With Stokealona, we’d gone the full 360.
Did we win anything during our Stoekalona period? Of course not. We’re Stoke City. Yet, whilst we’ve only ever won one ‘proper’ trophy in our 161-year history, Stoke City is a club rich in history, heritage, and tradition. If you were naming an All-Time World XI, you could seriously argue that two of our legends – Gordon Banks and Sir Stanley Matthews – would take up two of the starting positions in that team. Major trophy wins are the preserve of a small percentage of clubs, which means that the rest of us at the table are left with the crumbs of famous victories, cult heroes, epic failures, and relatively small periods of time in the spotlight.
Stokealona was one of those times.
So, Stokealona…..how did that particular term get started?
Again, a key date is involved. This time, it’s Saturday 5th December 2015. League leaders Manchester City rolled into ST4 under threatening skies. The kind of afternoon that when Tony Pulis was manager, Arsenal would have stayed shaking on the team coach.
I was selling the latest issue of my fanzine, DUCK, outside the ground that afternoon. The usual routine was observed: firstly, ensuring I had £40 worth of change, as any zine seller will tell you that a twenty quid note appears every single game just as you start selling; then boxing up the mags and getting plastic bags ready for the fortnightly elements; driving and parking up near the ground (akin to winning the Krypton Factor for Mundial readers of a certain vintage) and meeting my 12.15pm ‘regulars’ who were always there for ex-player autographs outside the corporate entrances; shouting myself hoarse for almost three hours; being asked if it was the bloody programme for the fiftieth time; asked “why is it called DUCK, duck” by lots of really funny people…..and then the team news came through…..”no bloody recognised striker, Bunny!”, “a front three that is smaller in total height than Peter Crouch!”, and “has Hughes lost his ****** mind!” were some of the more printable comments made by my punters that day.
But that front three consisted of our own BMX – Bojan, Marko (Arnautović), and Xherdan (Shaqiri). Three outstanding, technical players who could and would interchange and dance around the pitch wherever they fancied going that day. It was basically a 4-6-0 formation, with the aforementioned three, plus the gifted ex-Barca midfielder Ibrahim Afellay, all given a license to go and enjoy their football anywhere on the park, with the spine of Butland, Shawcross, and Whelan offering security behind them.
But it was the BMX that everyone was talking about. And no wonder. This was Stoke City, my club, signing world class players from the likes of Barcelona and Inter Milan, with Afellay also arriving from the Camp Nou, too. And these weren’t players after one final payday and nor were their stars waning. Top quality footballers who possibly just needed a little Potteries TLC.
That we only beat Man City 2-0 that afternoon was the only negative of the day. I have never before, since, and probably never will, see a Stoke City side play football at that level against such quality opposition. I was too young to appreciate the geniuses we had in the 1970’s such as Banks, Greenhoff, Conroy, and Hudson. I had to settle for my dad’s stories and tales. Yes, I had heroes of my own – players that I adored through the 80’s onwards, but they were nowhere near the level of footballing royalty like our BMX were. It was football that you only dream about or see on the PlayStation. But this was Stoke. My Stoke. And we were the envy of the footballing world for some of the stuff we were playing.
The term ‘Stokealona’ actually came from overseas, from Catalunya – home of our beloved El Petit Geni, Bojan. It was the Barcelona-based newspaper La Vanguardia that first branded us ‘Stokealona' in recognition of the unbelievably entertaining football that we had produced against the champions of England that afternoon.
It was fitting that our new moniker came from just down the road from La Masia, because it was the signing of Bojan Krkić that caught the attention of Stokies like no other had done for quite some time, if ever. A child prodigy, indeed, the “New Messi”, ‘Bo’ already had a glittering CV and undeniable talent. His quick feet, sharp mind and beaming smile had already graced the Camp Nou, San Siro, Stadio Olimpico, and Amsterdam Arena – and now his new home was the Britannia Stadium.
No one summed up the culture shift at Stoke City FC like Bojan. I was fortunate enough to interview him three times, do some charity work with him (at HIS request!), and still keep in contact with him. He regularly asks about my youngest lad’s progress on the pitch and is genuinely one of the nicest blokes you could ever wish to meet.
With regards to the charity work, we got a direct message on Twitter (in old money) from his official account on a Saturday night after a home game, saying he loved what we did, how we were positive about the city and it’s people, and he wanted to help. Obviously, I asked if this was actually him, and not a representative. It was. As I sat there with a celebratory Plum Porter or, er, nine, I think I felt better that night than I did at the birth of my three kids. I mean, getting a direct message off a superstar is basically them being in the same room as you, yeah?
I asked him what he wanted to do to help, and he said something that would help local kids. At the time, we were doing what we could to help a local kid’s hospice – an amazing place that Stoke City players and management supported and loved. So, we arranged for ‘Bo’ (that’s what his mates call him *chef’s kiss, winks*) to personally sign some one-off prints to auction. The lucky winners got a personalised message from Bojan. Crikey, there we some fortunate kids in Stoke that Christmas, and we raised loads for charity. All at his request. He didn’t have to do it, but did.
Signing Bojan signalled a new chapter, a new mindset, a new mantra. When I first interviewed him as editor of DUCK, what he says below is possibly a hint at the Stokealona era to come. A huge part of him signing for The Potters was our manager Mark Hughes and the shift in playing style Bojan saw under him after just one season in charge.
“I knew Stoke were a Premier League club and had played many years in that league”, our brilliant #27 stated, as we sat inside the training ground on a rare, blue-skied November afternoon in Stoke. One of those days when a bracing walk and country pub lunch is absolute heaven. Well, second only to meeting probably the best technical footballer my club had ever signed.
He continued, “I knew Stoke City had a lot of history and I knew of the reputation they had before I came and some people said to me ‘look at their reputation’ – but I knew Mark Hughes was the manager and I replied to them that if Mark Hughes wanted me then I know he wants to play in a certain style.
Mark Hughes was hugely important in getting me to Stoke. He knew I wanted to play games. He gave me confidence and it was a really good move. I feel really comfortable here.”
Bojan felt “comfortable”. Stokies would soon feel pure, unadulterated love and our DUCK homages to Bojan – tees, prints, stickers – flew out. Not only was he a superb footballer, but his attitude, personality and indeed boy-band looks, made him a firm favourite for fans (and my missus!), and manna-from-heaven for a fanzine editor as he was regularly tweeting on our timeline and supporting the magazine. This ensured that it was a fantastic time for us and the city was buzzing. Well, nine-tenths of it.
Along with fellow Catalonian, Marc Muniesa, I don’t know of any other Stoke players that have been liked as human beings, never mind footballers, as much in my lifetime. A cliché I know, but they ‘got’ our club, embraced the experience, loved the supporters – and we worshipped them back. ‘Muni’ was a gem of a human being. A family man, who had a smile that lit up Staffordshire, he too was another who took to not only the city and the fans, but to DUCK, too. The night many think Stokealona died was at Anfield in the semi-final second leg of the League Cup in 2016. We had won 1-0 and were easily the better team. But Hughes made the baffling decision to sub a brilliant, vibrant Bojan off for Charlie Adam – akin to winning a competition to spend a night with The Corrs and it turns out it’s their nans – and we eventually went out on penalties.
Muni missed the crucial spot kick, and as he cried, we cried. Actually, I didn’t as I’d had several ‘anaesthetics’ with the Spirit of Shankly lads beforehand, and the journey home was spent me messaging Muni telling him how loved he was by our support and to keep his head up. To my amazement, he texted back, but by that stage we’d availed ourselves of some garage beers (where else at midnight, you judgemental lot?) and I was beyond merry. Sorry, Muni lad.
Many thought Stoke City under Hughes weren’t the same again after that January night, and they’d probably be right. It was beyond crushing, beyond deflation. We never really recovered.
The BMX triumvirate was seen by many as Stokealona. But for me, Stokealona was a way of playing and a mindset, after years of pragmatism. But Stoke being Stoke, it wasn’t always a garden of roses. The period between 28th November 2015 and 2nd January 2016 summed us up to a tee: Unforgettable and hugely entertaining wins over Manchester City, Manchester United and Everton were mixed with defeats against Sunderland, Crystal Palace and West Brom. But it was a time when we virtually sprinted to matches, as you knew that we would try to entertain and also be wide open at the same time. We also knew that bog-standard midfield plodders and here-for-my-last-payday merchants were no doubt going to be just around the corner. And of course, Paul Bloody Lambert, too!
The other two spokes on the BMX three-pronged Stokealona wheel were Marko and Xherdan. As I type this, I still cannot believe that me and my youngest lad got to watch players of this calibre and status right in front of us. Will I see their like again in my lifetime in the red and white stripes? Doubtful.
Xherdan Shaqiri arrived in The Potteries in the summer of 2016: the “Alpine Messi” joining the “New Messi”. A surreal signing and our record signing, this was a serious statement of intent from Mark Hughes and The Potters, and I trotted along to the unveiling press conference at the stadium……what was in front of me I hadn’t seen before at Stoke……it was absolutely packed, with TV crews and media from all over the world trying to get a good vantage position. If anyone was in any doubt in any way about Shaq’s popularity and status in the footballing world then that was firmly put to bed.
A quiet, intelligent Shaq came across brilliantly sat alongside Mark Hughes, but the press conference was abruptly ended when some absolute media whopper asked about the size of Xherdan’s thighs and what jeans he wore (seriously!). Both gaffer and player immediately got up and walked away, unsurprisingly, down the corridor. What may have surprised them more than the question was the sight of an overweight 48-year-old fanzine editor in hot pursuit, armed only with two copies of the latest issue to be signed for charity and for his kid.
The “…he doesn’t score tap-ins, this lad….” comment was tailor-made for Shaq. Ask Hull City for details. With a left foot that could open up even my wife’s heart, he scored worldie after worldie, and his pass that took out the Man City defence for Marko’s second goal on that beautiful day was as good as anything you’ll ever see. And then there was his second goal at Goodison Park in our 4-3 win, too…..a half-volley chip on the run with the outside of his weaker right foot that I’ve not seen the likes of before or since. Match of the Day said he didn’t mean it. Of course they’d say that, after all, this was dreadful, horrible, big-bad Stoke City. But he DID mean it, and we weren’t just Stoke City anymore – we were Stokealona.
And Shaq’s wonder strike still wasn’t the best bit of that game – I implore MUNDIAL heads try to find a video of our injury time winning penalty and watch Joselu – yes, THAT Joselu - give referee Mark Clattenberg a massive hug after he awards us the spot kick. That day, the BMX simply spat The Toffees out at will. Awaydays get no better.
Xherdan Shaqiri would stay with Stoke until we were relegated, and then move to Liverpool – a sure sign as to how he was still a superb and very much rated player. In our relegation season, he was our shiniest of stars, creating and scoring regularly. Indeed, he was probably our only positive that season. Loved by the majority, there were still some Stokies who didn’t accept what he gave to the team and the club. This was highlighted in our defeat at home to Newcastle United on New Years Day 2018, where he was booed by quite a few for failing to chase after a lost cause of a pass that sailed out of play. Perhaps they wanted a dog trying to catch a balloon in a force 9 instead of moments of ecstasy? I remember falling out with fellow Stokies who I rather childishly derided in our block with “you’ll soon get the Stoke team and the Stoke players you deserve”. They got their wish five months later.
Xherdan Shaqiri was an artist, not an artisan. That’s why his name adorned kids’ shirts at clubs like Bayern Munich, Liverpool, Inter Milan, Lyon, Switzerland…..and Stoke.
Which brings us to the third player who typified our Stokealona period - Marko Arnautović – who in my opinion was the most crucial of the three. The term ‘enigma’ is always flirted about when Marko is discussed. The definition is, “someone or something that is mysterious and impossible to understand” …..and when it came to his persona on and off the pitch that could be true. You never knew which emotion would be on show next…..would he go in a sulk or beat his chest? Would he berate others or berate himself? Would he display a big smile or a big mard? He fascinated me, as personality-wise he could be polar opposites every ten seconds. But as a player? Wow. Box office. As a footballer for Stoke City, he wasn’t an enigma – he was simply brilliant and walks into the best Potters XI of my lifetime.
Some look at Marko Arnautović and think he underachieved a little. This was a player who played in the Premier League, Serie A, Bundesliga, Eredivisie, and has over 120 caps/39 goals and counting. He has Serie A, Coppa Italia, and Champions League winners’ medals. Some enigma, that. Perhaps with the God-given talent he had in his feet he could have done even more, but Arnie is a footballer of beautiful moments, and of hope. Whilst he is on the pitch wearing your colours, you have a chance of seeing something incredible. Regularly unplayable, Arnie also possessed a physicality to match his ability and also scored goals in big games against big clubs. His move to West Ham and the way he departed left the bitterest of tastes in Stokie mouths – but when top players leave, you’re gutted, you’re bitter, aren’t you? When average and bad players leave, you’re not arsed. He was hated by us, absolutely detested…a huge compliment for the lad.
He returned with The Hammers and got a famous Stoke ‘welcome’ – it was absolutely vile in the stands that day. But Arnie ran the show, scored, and did the cross-arm Hammers salute at our fans. The pitch was his stage, and he played with the mentality that everyone had come to see him – and I loved that attitude.
When the BMX were on the pitch together, things happened. They weren’t in the same team anywhere near as much as Stokies wanted, but when they were, that was peak Stokealona, and the football could be sublime. Two of my favourite memories from that time were of the three players celebrating a goal against Man City together – three stunning footballers, each recognising just how good the other two were. And then there was Bojan’s winner and celebration in front of a raucous, madly-in-love away end at Leicester. What an afternoon that was; we basically flew home down the A50 on hopes and dreams.
It’s really hard to pin down an exact Stokealona period of time when looking back. Not that we need to. As stated before, we only got called it after the Man City win in December 2015, but before then, Mark Hughes had The Potters playing some scintillating stuff, none more so than the 6-1 annihilation of Liverpool in their best-ever player’s final match, at the end of the 2014/15 season. A game where I spoke to Mark Hughes and shook his hand after the game.
“I was a 70’s child, Mark. I lived through the playground taunts and jibes of Liverpool gloryhunters. Bloody horrible times they were and today you’ve made lots of people of my era very, very happy. Thank you for today, thank you….”
We were even without the talismanic Bojan that day, who had his first season cruelly curtailed by doing an ACL at Rochdale in the cup. I’ve had an irrational hatred of Spotland ever since, despite it having a pub and chippy near the away end, as for three months or so Bojan was possibly the best player in the Premier League. Some say he was never the same again when he came back – he was. Stats back that up. But our manager(s) decided not to play him. Typical Stoke City.
Typical of Bojan, his recovery from injury included his adoring Stoke admirers. He went back to his beloved Catalunya, and ran, cycled, and dragged himself up and over various mountains (he’s actually an extremely accomplished cyclist and horse rider!) and put a load of videos of his work on social media. In our next interview, I asked him if this was his idea? His answer…..
“Yes, it was my idea to put videos of my recovery on social media as we as footballers are important to our fans. But not only when it’s going well and you are in a good way – it’s easy then – but more so when it’s hard. I worked really long hours to get back to good health and get my leg strong, and I even wrote a daily diary, but it was worth it!
I wanted to show my fans that ‘ok, this hard, but I am going to come back stronger and I am doing my very best to do so’. I feel they have the right to see how I am doing and they liked doing so.”
Whenever it actually started, there was no doubt who created Stokealona. As Bojan commented, Mark Hughes was the man who changed how we played football and it was he who signed all three of the BMX lads, gave us three 9th place finishes, a cup semi, and some stunning stuff to feats our eyes on. But eventually he would get the sack after we weren’t just sent to Coventry but lost there in embarrassing fashion in the FA Cup. You know a manager will get the sack after a game as soon as you see a bedsheet in the stands with his name and the word ‘OUT!’ written on, don’t you? But many, including me, could smell relegation coming at least 12, possibly 18 months before it did. Saying that, when he left, we were actually just above the relegation places. Enter Mr Lambert.
Since then, we have finished bottom half of The Championship each season. But Hughes’ time was up well before Coventry in my eyes. And I’ll come onto that in a minute….
Looking back at Hughes’s reign - and as I said before, I still think some of our best football was played pre 'Stokealona' or without Bojan and Shaqiri even in the side, such as the end of 2013/14 when Peter Odemwingie was on fire. And I’ve already alluded as to what we did to Liverpool the year after. But the BMX bandits added more than a sprinkling of footballing sex appeal on top of what we had. That most crackers of football supporter – the ‘neutral’ – loved tuning in to watch us during this time; the media was camped outside our Clayton Wood training ground; and schoolkids and teams from Basel to Barca came to our matches. We were liked. I felt like we were cheating on a loved on. After all, we are Stoke. Please hate us.
There are two ways of looking at the Stokealona period as a Stoke fan…..it’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all, is one way. But with that, we also got a typically Stoke City too-fleeting glimpse of what life really could be like. I always think about just how good that side should have become. We were only one or two players short of being both consistent and formidable.
Think of the Stokealona team that battered the two Manchester clubs, scored four at Goodison, outplayed Chelsea and the like…..and then throw in a key name into that mix; Steven Nzonzi, who left us in the Summer of 2015. Put him in the side (and add the recently departed Berlin Wall, Robert Huth) - now THAT would have been a very special team. Hughes would still have the Pulis spine and three star attackers, but also a midfield dominator, too.
At the time, Nzonzi was as good a centre midfielder as there was in the topflight outside the top four. Easily. He was imperious and bossed the best midfields. Selling him for an absolute pittance (just £7m) was second only to Lambert being given the hotseat in crap decision-making in my eyes. He had a year left of his contract, and I’m convinced if he’d have been in the team a year later, we would have beaten Liverpool in the League Cup semi and possibly finished top six. Seven. Million. Pounds. Or around 40% of a Kevin Wimmer! Yes, The Zonz wanted to move, but I’d have chained him in the changing room to keep him here for just one season as our star was firmly rising. Typical Stoke.
By May 2018, Stokealona had been and gone, and we were back in The Championship – and we ain’t leaving anytime soon. Well, upwards, anyway. There are conflicting views and opinions on what went wrong and why, and conversations in the pub (they’re now called social media and messageboard posts) are quick to point out what could and should have been done to take us to the next step. Many looked down the A50/M1 to Leicester City and what they achieved around that time, and whilst it’s a long-shot to say we could have replicated that, we firstly lost a key player to them who helped them to win the league, and they’re also a similar sized club to ourselves. Those three ninth placed finishes under Hughes should have been the building blocks to Europe and a serious crack at winning a cup. Instead, we ‘did a Stoke’; The prototype Spursy, the club with The Andrex Touch us.
But was Stokealona actually a thing for us Stokies?
Like a lot of the hyperbole-filled footballing world we live in nowadays, it was made up by others, and plenty of those outside Stoke went along with it. But did Stokies? I’ll be honest, we rarely if ever used the term in the fanzine, nor was it heard too much in conversations, either. We just knew that we had players who made football joyful, a team that could outplay teams off the pitch rather than outwork them, and they gave us some amazing memories. As a writer of sorts, I find it hard to type ‘Stokealona’ even now. Have a go at it on your keyboards – you actually pause halfway through to check, as it doesn’t seem quite right.
For me, a big reason that Stokealona ended wasn’t because of our carefree approach or sumptuous football. I felt that it was because Hughes never really replaced the Pulis spine of the team that he inherited, well enough. Every team needs a touch of pragmatism and a degree of physicality. The terrific signings Hughes made were generally more attack-minded players that were added to the rock-solid foundations he'd been left. Under those circumstances there is a high margin for error because, if the flair players don't perform, you still have that foundation that can weather the storm and form the basis for grinding out the necessary results. It’s when those foundations get older, move, or start to crumble you’re in trouble.
Hughes inherited Pulis’ core and was able to use his contacts and reputation to sprinkle stardust onto that core. When it's the foundations themselves that need rebuilding, the margin for error is far narrower. In our relegation season, we still had moments of genius from Shaq. But because the team behind him weren't capable of grinding it out, his goals sadly became an irrelevance in the end.
Hughes’ failure for me, came when Pulis’ core disintegrated, and a new core needed to be built. There were plenty of us who recognised our downwards trajectory after the underwhelming penultimate season in the Premier League (2016/2017) when we finished 13th but were awful for large parts of the campaign. We won our last game of that campaign at St Mary’s - the only league ground in the country where the stewards stopped me selling outside the away end, by the way. Another club I (ir)rationally detest) - but it hid a million deficiencies. The week before, Arsenal took us apart at home. Arsenal just didn’t do that to Stoke in ST4. Hughes should have gone then, for me. Our lap of honour that day, as it was our last home game of the season, took place in front of the player’s families and around 47 people who had either missed the early bus home or fancied the easy pickings of a matchworn shirt. As stated before, we absolutely reeked of relegation. Indeed, Marko also seemed to smell it. And along with the much-heralded Stokealona, he departed.
Typical Stoke. Olé, indeed.
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