Another bad news hits Stoke City: The head coach of Stoke City shed tears as four of his star players made a final decision to terminate their huge contracts.
Another set of unfortunate news for Stoke City: Four of their top players have decided to end their enormous contracts, causing the head coach of Stoke City to cry.
Over the past 161 years, Stoke City has experienced a few dull moments. There have been amazing highs, along with a great deal of conflict to enhance the highs.
Many will be keeping that in mind as Stoke battle to survive in the Championship following five traumatic seasons of fluctuating in the bottom half following their relegation from the Premier League.
We have selected 15 of the worst choices made by the club throughout its history by going through the archives. Hurt. When the need arises, grab a bag of tissues and a cushion to hide behind. You can also recommend any that we might have missed in the comments area.
With the exception of October 6, 1888, one month into the season, Stoke had two bookings. The FA had made the decision to enter the Potters into the first of four qualifying rounds rather than giving them a bye to the FA Cup first round.
Stoke decided to take a risk and sent Stoke Swifts, their reserve team, to play against Warwick County, an underdog. and were the first Football League team eliminated by non-league minnows from the FA Cup.
And they sent their first squad into the league to play the unbeatable Preston North End. Alf Edge and James Sayer, the first team’s two players, managed to miss the train but were unsuccessful in their attempt to switch to the Swifts.
Stoke lost 7–0 and had to borrow two players from Preston. Nevertheless, Stoke showed his appreciation for their loan by providing “beautiful tea service” to Walter Smalley and Alf Dempsey. Preston was never the target of their games.
When Stoke went to Wolves for an FA Cup third round match in 1890, the pitch conditions—which included sleet, wetness, and an awful, heavy surface—were so dreadful that the team protested to the FA following their 4-0 loss.
In January of 1902, Stoke had a pre-match supper at the Adelphi Hotel before playing Liverpool in a mid-table match.
“As soon as the plaice was served, Mr. A. Pennington, the trainer, and Mr. J. Eccles, his assistant, smelled a rat,” Sentinel reporter The Potter reported. More accurately, they ate buttered bread and smelled the fish.
James Bradley, a halfback who was seated close to them, furrowed his brow after taking a bite of his fish. Then, in his quiet way, he remarked, “It turns a bit.” At the time, just a few people complained that they hadn’t eaten all of their fish.
Mr. Dickie Roose, the goalkeeper, seemed to like his food. And as a result, he suffered more than anybody. The players left for the ground around 30 minutes after the lunch, and Roose complained of being sick and blamed the fish for it.
When kickoff rolled along, Roose went directly over to referee Charles Sutcliffe to let him know he wasn’t feeling well.
Nevertheless, Stoke got off to a strong start and had a chance to lead by two goals in the first five minutes, thanks to efforts from Mart Watkins and Len Hales. However, Liverpool immediately attacked Roose after breaking, and allowing the ball to strike his stomach proved to be the breaking point. After Andy McGuigan scored on the rebound, the goalie hurried to the closest restroom.
At halftime, several players and manager Horace Austerberry were extremely ill. “The dressing room was like the deck of a cross-channel steamer in rough weather; only the smell was worse,” stated Dr. Moody, the director of Stoke.
For Roose, a physician by trade, it was far worse because he had become delusional. He was pretending he was still in goal as he dove around on the concrete outside the ground.
When the second half began, Stoke had just seven players remaining, and six of them were somewhat injured.
Having dined by himself before the expedition, Hales was the only one in pristine health. He would have had one of the “most brilliant individual efforts seen for many a long day” if Maurice Parry hadn’t “dirty” tripped him from behind. Stoke suffered a 7-0 defeat.
One time, Jimmy Broad was the gem in the crown of a Stoke spending binge. In the summer of 1921, the center-forward joined the team for a club record of £2,500 from Millwall, with the intention of converting crosses from his brother Tommy, another new recruit who had cost £500 to join from Manchester City.
John Slater, a former football player who is now an entrepreneur, provided the funding for the extravagant purchase, and it was successful in propelling Stoke to the top division.
By February of the following year, Broad had scored 23 goals, and injuries had all but guaranteed the team’s relegation. After that, purse strings were pulled, and Jimmy was among several players who were not offered new contracts.
Simon Lowe, a writer from Stoke, stated: “Jimmy was unwilling to leave Stoke City.” After being freed along with three other players, he made the decision to handle things on his own. The Sentinel of the Day reported that Jimmy and his three teammates broke into the Stoke City offices one evening and vandalized them as a form of protest against the club’s decision to release them.
The Stoke board was taken aback, but they were so moved by Jimmy and his friends’ devotion and intensity of feeling that they all received one-year contract extensions.
Before moving on to play for Everton, Deportivo La Coruna, Barcelona, Las Palmas, and Juventus, Broad scored an additional 14 goals the following season.
John Magnan’s rapid rise through Stoke City’s ranks during World War II was so impressive that he was compared to Stanley Matthews due to his 10-yard sprint time.
At the age of seventeen, he made his club debut in a War League match against Coventry in December 1944. His quickness and deft dribbling earned him a penalty, and he went on to score the first goal in a 5-0 victory.
But a month later, the League wrote Stoke an official letter claiming that because Magnan’s surname was spoken with a soft “g,” it was printed as Magnan on the teamsheet even though he had been registered as Mannion.
Even though Stoke insisted that Magnan’s spelling error was accidental, the League was cracking down on teams that used ringers, and Magnan was barred from playing professional football for life.
Tragically, Magnan’s name had really been spelled Mannion on his birth certificate, as Simon Lowe discovered while conducting research for his book, Potters at War.
“John left football and went back to work down the local pit, where he drank a lot and his life fell apart,” the speaker stated. Tragically, he lost 6-0 to Eastwood Hanley in the Sentinel Cup final at the Victoria Ground, where he played his final football game.
“Telling his teammates, ‘I’ve had enough,’ he walked off into the rain and threw his boots over the wall of St. Peter’s Church.” His age was thirty-two.
Although there is a lot of build-up to this chapter, to put it briefly, in the spring of 1947, Stanley Matthews, who was undoubtedly the best player in the world at the time, was not happy at Stoke, despite the fact that the team was fighting to win the English championship.
At 32, he felt that his playing days were numbered. He was balancing his playing career with managing a guest house in Blackpool, where he had been stationed during the war, and he had a falling out with Stoke manager Bob McGrory.
After the transfer deadline had passed, he continued to play and led Stoke to seven straight wins, including a season-ending 2-1 triumph over Leeds.
After that, Matthews received a call-up to join an FA touring team, which meant he would have to miss two of the final three games. Given the situation and the fact that Blackpool had already finished their season, McGrory approved his sale.
He was exchanging Matthews’ supposed disruptive influence on team spirit for his availability for one game, which happened to be Sheffield United’s title decider. History would not judge you kindly.
Furthermore, Stoke, who wanted to pay a world record £20,000 for the player, were unable to provoke a bidding war since the player insisted he would only join Blackpool. As it happened, Matthews departed with £11,500.
In their remaining games, Stoke won, lost, and drew. With two more points, they would have been the eventual champions, rather than Liverpool. Nevertheless, they finished in fourth place. An incredible season came to an awful end.
