Express and Star match report

[ted1965]

The December cold hung in the air around the Britannia stadium as the mighty table topping samba stars of the black country swaggered into town to meet the punching well above their weight clogging upstarts from the Potteries.

This was going to be a game of contrasts, on the one hand we have the all conquering free flowing pass masters from the black country against a team that would have looked one dimensional even back in the mid nineties, think of John Beck’s Cambridge or the early days of Wimbledon and imagine even more crude and you have Stoke City under their manager Tony pump it high Pulis.

Their supporters were a mirror image of their sides, the knuckle draggers from the home end grunted and waved threatening fists as the league leaders and their party loving fans danced the length of the Stanley Mathews way to see their cultured football artisans take on the Neanderthal semi evolved troglodytes of Stoke.

Albion who had been kicked off the park by the same bullying basketball sized side at the home of the gods the Hawthorns not so long ago. They had to endure scything tackles from behind, players rolling around and wasting time after they had stunned everyone by scoring with their only shot of the night, in fact the only time they got out of their own half such is the might of the current West Brom side. Though as wave after wave of Albion pressure came down upon the Stoke gaol it seemed for a terrible moment that the clog would prevail over the soft shoe this night.

Though with tenacious bravado they finally came back and prevented the bully boy tactics from prevailing and but for the time wasting by Stoke and the lack of actual making their goalkeeper work would have won by the proverbial landslide, though thanks to the referee and Stokes dubious and downright cheating the mighty Baggies had to settle for a point, which in reality had it been a boxing match would have been a unanimous wide margin victory.

It will be a different story this time enthused their manager in his pre-match interview on the local radio, we know what to expect. They are not going to be any different, the St John’s ambulance have been put on standby to revive any of my players who fall by the wayside under the unerring assault and battery that will inevitably come our way. It would be nice if the referee sent three or four of their players off in the tunnel for looking at us in a aggressive manner but we know from old this wont happen and we will have to face them man to thug.

The only words from the home dressing room was a low growling sound as they were thrown their raw meat as they watched another rerun of Jurasic Park.

The game itself was just as we all expected, Stoke took the kick off and the ball found it’s way back to their huge defenders who immediately launched it forward like a missile. It flew through the air and landed at their huge hulking strikers feet, of course he didn’t know what to do with it as he was more used to it bouncing off his head so Albion immediately took possession of the football and passed it about like only they can, then from nowhere Shawcross came lumbering into what people in these parts call a committed tackle the rest of the world calls it thuggery but you’re playing Stoke not a real football team so what else can you expect. The game continues with Albion bodies littering the ground every few minutes and the Neanderthal home support grunting and dragging their knuckles in approval of every bone crunching tackle that laid one of Albion’s artisans out flat, though it’s one way traffic apart from the occasional long hoof up field.

Then just as it seems only a matter of time before Albion samba their way into a deserved lead the unthinkable happens, another booming clog up field, bounces of Cresswells shin into the path of Fuller, he somehow shins it past three defenders it bobbles and bounces off his knee as he and Lawrence attempt to exchange passes and suddenly it a completely miss hit shot that seemed destined for the back of the stand was blown goal wards in a terrible freak breeze and the stranded Albion keeper looked on in shock.

This was a disgrace, how can this happen again, Albion the only side attempting to play football and yet here they were behind to this clogging pub side yet again. The home support bayed for more Albion blood, almost begged for one of their thug like defenders to take out one of the Samba boys, the referee of course did nothing, he simply gave free kicks but didn’t seem to see the same game as those who were watching it fairly and not through the blinkered thug like eyes of the home supporters.

Albion played with verve and imagination, they attacked in waves and Stoke hacked at them, snarled at them, pulled their shirts, gouged them in the eyes at corners and still the referee couldn’t see any of it, in spite of the near hysterical pleading coming from the incensed radio west midlands commentary box next to mine. We looked at each other in disbelief as yet another murderous lunge was launched by Cort at Gera, this man must have had more bookings in his career than he has completed games, it was worse than the Hawthorns, you felt there was no protection for Albion at all.

Then just when it looked only a matter of time before the sweet free flowing football from Brazil would equalize it happened, another huge lump up field, which bounced off four players in what almost looked like an attempt to kill the ball as somehow it found it’s way through to Cresswell, he clearly handled it with his first touch how else can one explain a Stoke player bringing a ball under control and after almost tripping over the ball so unused to having it at his feet he shinned it home from 20 yards, it bobbled over several clumps of raised grass where Stoke players had committed some heinous crime during the game and amazingly found it’s way into the net.

The Albion players sank to their knees in despair, where they were immediately tackled from behind by the whole Stoke side en masse but all the referee could do was blow the whistle for full time and as the St John’s ambulance removed the prone bodies of the Baggies wonder team from the field, the home supporters growled and grunted their approval at their Neanderthal sides performance.

It’s obvious to anyone who watched this game from a fair minded non biased viewpoint that Stoke are the most awful heinous team ever to lace clogged boots but on this day sadly football was the loser but we can all see that there’s only one team who played football and sadly they were vanquished by the marauding tribes of the Potteries on this sad day for the beautiful game.

STAS

Stoke 2-0 W B A

Shots on goal 12 - 4

Shots on target 5 -0

[PotterLog]

Fuck me as if I'm going to read all that. It's only about the 80th post in the same vein.