Founded as Stoke Ramblers in 1863, the club's players would perambulate across the moors and National Trust properties until they were granted ciity status in 1925 when they changed their name to Stoke City. The Ramblers were established by Henry Almond, an apprentice with the North Staffordshire Railway Company, who apponted himself captain and scored the only goal in their opening match against a scratch team of assorted walnuts, peanuts and chestnuts.
Along with the recently battered Blackburn Rovers, Decimated Derby County and the Priest Town Invincibles, Stoke share the honour of being one of the twelve founding members of the Football Leauge in 1888. Since those auspicious beginnings, Stoke have boomeranged up and down the leagues, in and out of liquidation, more often than TC's private parts on a bouncy castle.
Stoke are nicknamed the Potters after successive generations of wizards plied their wands acoss Stafforshire's historic potteries. After watchinig copious amounts of pirate movies, the club decided to wear red and white striped shirts and adopted the song Delilah in lieu of being cuckolded by voluptuous, treacherous women.
Their most celebrated player was the Arthurian Knight, Sir Hanley Matthews who grew up in Stanley and like the aforementioned Potters was reknowned for being a wizard and a magician. Against all odds, the Potters achieved top flight status, led by a management team of Waddington's Playing Cards. Under Ace Potter, Waddington, they won the Football League Cup in 1972, reached two FA Cup Semi Finals and could well have won the Division One Trophy had the Butler Street Stand roof not fallen off in a strong storm.
Famous celebrities from Stoke include:
Football hooligan, Mark Chester
Robbie Williams
Slash
Lemmy
Captain Edwad Smith who sank the Titanic
Phil The Power Taylor
Bruno Brookes
Neil Morrissey
Ted Hankey
Nick Hancock
Garth Crooks
Sir Hanley Matthews
Harry Potter
Various Potters
Sir Douglas "Tin Legs" Bader
Stoke are on to their third manager of the seasion and are currently helmed by Narcís Pèlach known as Chicho after one of the Marx Brothers. They currently sit 19th in the table and we are second. Their current streak is D L L L D L and ours is W L W W D W . Their star player is Million Manhoef who has hoofed a million men. Their top goalscorer this year is Tommy Cannon, one half of comic double act Cannon and Ball. I predict 3-0 win to our boys with goals from James, Joseph and Bogle.
Another win mate although a crap watch the fog made me wonder if there was a ball in play still we are top of the league
Great result, should have scored more.
The fog meant we couldn't see a thing at the other end.
A lot of Leeds fans are an embarrassment to the club. 50% of the chants last night had the word paedo in them. Like I know what would be funny let's replace one of the words in a chant to paedo. Can't stand it.
Plus the new Solomon one about him f........ hating Palestine, WTF.
The best part of this match is we won and second best part is that the fans were outstanding (you heard all game).
While good player i am not a Solomon fan, much rather either Gnonto or Ramazani start.
Smurf for president.
January window is really intriguing. We are so close to being Premier League - do we invest now in time for next year, or leave it till January and risk Blunts or Burnley signing the likes of Barrie or McAteer????
Decisions decisions
Either way - Danish you have it right - we need to be even better to survive next season otherwise all this effort is wasted.
I'm not sure we need to bother about the January window, we have a squad of players now sufficient to rotate without any detriment to our playing style which in my opinion is great credit to DF and the scouting team considering the players who departed in the summer.
Winning as we all know breeds confidence and we have bundles of that at the moment!
Will Smurf ever be toppled for the rest of the season!!
MOT
Great save by Meslier in first few minutes or it would have been a different game....
James is an unbelievable outlet with his pace but I expect Gnonto and Largie to start v Derby in 3 days time.... Rothwell may also be replaced by Tanaka.
Bogle was excellent today....
What a squad!
The only problem with winning is we won't spend in January!!
All rather festive 😊
Top of the table tonight and we start 2025 at the top if we defeat the sheep.
Players rested, players relaxed - we're good enough.
Feck me, is it the fog or the camera work. I made as we’ll be watching on the radio.
Much easier goal for Piroe this time round.
Leeds look very fluent today. And Stoke look stoked.
Cracking goal by Piroe.
Rothwell and Bogle also putting in a shift. Meslier made a major save earlier too.
Looks like a bad decision. Tanaka has kept our midfield ticking since end-September.
Yes, interesting selection. We all knew Ampadu would walk back into the first XI, he’s club captain, he’s a leader, he’s a proper DCM. But I don’t appreciate he was oven ready yet. Suspect Tanake and Rothwell will rotate in the other midfield position. Or it will be a tactical decision based on who the opposition is. Does show how much depth our squad has. A good problem to have.
Tanaka dropped to get ampadu back in midfield, hope farke knows what he's doing, I'm gobsmacked
Quality MDT Mouseman and good luck for a prolonged run....if in fact we're due to play Stoke on Boxing Day.
I'll bump this to the top for Mr Premature and I can't work out if the Smurf is cocky, arrogant, stupid or a sheer genius in predicting this MDT.... I'm going for the latter 👍⚽🙌
I predicted a 4-1 victory in his MDT a couple of months back now and will stick with this....a James brace and Largie and Gnonto to notch late on
Cracking MDT TC
Great MDT TC10 - all the best for a prolonged run
I think this is a real challenging game for us - but we'll scrape a draw
Marseille 2-2 Leeds
Unbelievable and not even an apology or explanation....
It's like being at home where the missus somehow blames everything on me for her mistake ....🤐🤫😜🙈🤣
Good man Smurf, unbeaten until we play Stoke on Boxing Day, I like your style!
WTF? Am I missing something here!? We've got Boro on Tuesday and don't play Stoke til Boxing Day....
Cracking MDT all the same and am predicting a 4-1 victory when we do play them....😱😜🙈🤣