Stoke City Match of My Life , livre ebook

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140 pages

English

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Sixteen Stoke City legends tell the stories behind their favourite ever games for the club - enabling Potters fans of all ages to relive these magic moments through the eyes and emotions of the men who were there, playing their hearts out for the red-and-white stripes...Terry Conroy recounts scoring in the 1972 League Cup Final, and Mark Stein remembers another Wembley win in the 1992 Autoglass Trophy. Denis Smith recalls when Stoke took on the best that Europe had to offer, and came so close to defeating mighty Ajax, while Peter Fox takes the unusual step of selecting a game in which he only played for half an hour - the 4-4 draw with Luton in 1982. Victoria Ground legends Dennis Herod, Tony Allen and Mark Chamberlain also turn in characteristic star performances, winding back the clock to relive treasured memories of the Match of Their Lives for the Potters.

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Staffordshire

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Publié par	Pitch Publishing Ltd
Date de parution	01 septembre 2012
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781909178137
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0374€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

This edition first published by Pitch Publishing 2012
Pitch Publishing A2 Yeoman Gate Yeoman Way Durrington BN13 3QZ www.pitchpublishing.co.uk
© Simon Lowe 2012
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the Publisher.
ISBN 978-1-909178-13-7
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Acknowledgements
Thanks to John Booth, Tony Scholes and Peter Coates at Stoke City FC for giving this project their full backing. It would not have been possible without the contact books of Terry Conroy, who does know just about everybody in football and Brendan O’Callaghan. The response from the players who have taken part in this book has been remarkable. I hope they had as much fun reliving their greatest moments as I did.
A big thank you must go to Roger Martin for allowing me the run of his phenomenal programme collection, Julian Boodell and Andy Peck for assistance with photographs and the Sports Department of the Sentinel, especially Keith Wales, who have ably assisted me when it came to finding photographs and providing publicity for this book. Many thanks go to Bury FC for the hospitality shown to me while visiting them to interview Mike Sheron and Peter Fox.
I would also like to mention several players who wished to contribute to this book, but who couldn’t because of circumstance or time constraints. Eric Skeels, Stoke’s record appearance holder, had an illness in the family, while Adrian Heath had the misfortune to be made caretaker-manager at Coventry City after the departure of Micky Adams and his duties meant he was unable to take part too. Steve Bould, John Mahoney, Paul Bracewell, Lee Sandford and Alan Hudson all also would have loved to take part, but logistics rendered it impossible. Maybe they will all be available to help should another volume of great memories be judged a good idea!
Simon Lowe
This book is dedicated to Sir Stanley Matthews. Stoke-on-Trent’s greatest son and greatest inspiration.
Contents
INTRODUCTION by Simon Lowe
FOREWORD by Nigel Johnson
1. DENNIS HEROD v Sheffield United League Division One, June 1947
2. JOHNNY KING v Nottingham Forest League Division Two, August 1954
3. DON RATCLIFFE v Real Madrid Centenary Celebration Match, April 1963
4. TONY ALLEN v Chelsea League Division Two, May 1963
5. JIMMY O’NEILL v Luton Town League Division Two, May 1963
6. HARRY BURROWS v Aston Villa League Division One, December 1966
7. TERRY CONROY v Chelsea League Cup Final, March 1972
8. DENIS SMITH v Ajax UEFA Cup first round second leg, October 1974
9. PAUL MAGUIRE v Leeds United Division One, September 1980
10. MARK CHAMBERLAIN v Birmingham City Division One, August 1982
11. PETER FOX v Luton Town League Division One, September 1982
12. BRENDAN O’CALLAGHAN v Manchester United League Division One, March 1983
13. IAN PAINTER v Liverpool Division One, April 1984
14. IAN CRANSON v Liverpool League Cup second round first leg, September 1991
15. MARK STEIN v Manchester United League Cup second round first leg, September 1993
16. MIKE SHERON v Charlton Athletic League Division One, May 1996
Introduction
I sat in the Crown Inn at Betley, on the Crewe road, opposite one of Stoke’s greatest ever goalkeepers. He showed me the hands that had been gnarled by years of catching the heavy, sodden, leather ball, and the scars from the explosion as the shell ripped through his tank in Northern France.
Dennis Herod was a hero to many during Stoke’s tilt at the 1946/47 League Championship – the closest City have ever come to winning the title – but not too many fans even then knew the full story behind his incredible resurrection from war invalid to goalkeeping legend. And even if they did, it wasn’t that unusual – there had been a war on.
The tears rolled down Dennis’s cheeks as he recounted to me tales of his fellow players from that team – all now, following the death of Frank Mountford in 2006, departed. When I asked him to choose his favourite, or best game for the club, he immediately told me that there was only one game that really mattered – the one which would have seen Stoke win the league title in June 1947. Defeat to Sheffield United cost City that accolade, but Dennis still recalls it vividly despite the crushing disappointment, just as he remembered the players and friends he had cherished during his time at Stoke. He was recalling the good old days, of course, with rose-tinted spectacles, naturally, but he captured for me the spirit of playing football for a living and an era when the true reward for the players was the passion of pulling on the shirt and the glory of winning.
Back in the 1940s players were true working class heroes, living amongst the communities that they represented wholeheartedly on a Saturday afternoon, travelling to the game on the same bus or tram and drinking in the same pubs. Even until the 1970s, and the era of Hudson, Greenhoff and Smith, that remained true, although the likes of George Best had begun to lift top footballers into the realms of superstardom. Nowadays, of course, even a common or garden player makes far more cash than the average fan, and lives an aloof life. They still represent us out on the pitch, but it’s not quite the same. Whether you think that’s because of the money that’s come into the game, or the move to the new, slightly sterile modern ground, the birth of Sky TV, or a combination of all those things, the irrevocable fact is, it ain’t like it used to be.
The one Match Of My Life chapter that I would truly liked to have recorded is that of Sir Stanley Matthews. Having been fortunate enough to meet the great man on a number of occasions and also having interviewed him several times, I talked with Stan about many great matches in which he performed heroics for Stoke. He was particularly fond of the 3-1 victory over Chelsea in 1934 in the fifth round of the FA Cup, a game in which he scored two goals; "I was a bit of a goalscorer back in those days!" he told me in that self-effacing way of his.
He also spoke glowingly of a 0-0 draw with the great Herbert Chapman Arsenal team, including his own personal hero Alex James, on Easter Saturday 1937; a match which attracted the largest ever crowd to the Victoria Ground of 51,373. But my feeling is that, despite occasions such as his incredible comeback match in October 1961 against Huddersfield, which effectively revitalised the club, and the 1962/63 promotion-clinching victory over Luton in which Stan scored, relived in this book by goalkeeper Jimmy O’Neill, the game which meant the most to him was his farewell match in which Stoke played a team assembled from global superstars such as Puskas, Di Stefano, Masopust and Yashin. The match was beamed to a worldwide audience of 112 million people – in those days Stoke City FC were big news.
Stan always spoke about how he was honoured by the way these great players had come to Stoke to support him and how the public had turned out to bid him a teary farewell. Typically he never wanted to take the limelight, or boast about his personal achievement, but that night just allowed him a doff of his metaphoric cap in acknowledgment as he was chaired off the field to wild applause.
This book is dedicated to the memory of Sir Stan, whose presence lives on in the form of the Sir Stanley Matthews Foundation which does such good work around the Potteries encouraging children to get involved in sport. One pound from the sale of each copy of this book will be donated to the Foundation, whose chairman, BBC Radio Stoke’s commentator Nigel Johnson, also provides the Foreword.
All the Stoke heroes who have contributed to this book have shown, in their own way, what an indelible mark the club has left upon them. The spread of legends taking part means that the book covers 60 years of Stoke City matches; the era may change, but always the pride and passion shine through.
Of course all supporters have their own favourite Stoke game. It’s always a match that has that special meaning for them personally. Mine would probably be the 4-3 victory over West Brom in September 1992 which sparked the club record unbeaten run that would finally see Lou Macari’s team win the Division Two title. But I’d also have a strong word for the two Wembley wins of 1992 and 2000.
The reasons each player has for selecting their favourite game are many and varied. Denis Smith loved pitting his wits against the greatest club side in the world in Ajax in the mid-1970s, Paul Maguire couldn’t better his debut, even with that famous four goal performance against Wolves which saved Stoke from relegation in 1984, Mark Stein and Brendan O’Callaghan both preferred defeating Manchester United to their respective promotion triumphs, goalkeeper Peter Fox strangely chose a match in which he was sent off (!) and only played 28 minutes, while, perhaps more predictably, Terry Conroy just had to choose his goal at Wembley which helped Stoke win the 1972 League Cup.
Inevitably it was more difficult to track down the modern players, who are still either in the game playing at other clubs, or who coach. This means that the book does not feature a chapter by James O’Connor for example, about his incredible night at Ninian Park that saw Stoke through to the 2002 play-off final and ultimately promotion. I chased Peter Thorne and Peter Hoekstra to, but to no avail. I would love to be able to put that right one day.
There was plenty of incident along the way. Tony Allen’s wife misheard