happy potter
and the philosophical stokie

A Scandinavian education expert has recently stated that by the age of five most youngsters have taken in the key knowledge which will prepare them for later life. I’m not too sure about that, but some of my earliest recollections of toddler life involved my lifelong love of Stoke City.

So much in life has changed since I was first taken down to the Victoria Ground by my Potters-mad father, over 30 years ago, and not all for the better. We now live in a very sterilised, untrusting society where children are concerned. The terms ‘health and safety’ and ‘risk assessment’ were virtually unheard of in a time when I used to run around in whatever my nan had knitted me (and no, that wasn’t a few weeks ago!).

Our promotion to the Premier League, secured via the solitary point required off Leicester on Sunday, represents the biggest opportunity for the ‘lost generation’ to actually reclaim their love for their local football team. A generation that has been raised on false dawns, empty promises, shattered dreams, and the sound of their city and football club being roundly hammered by the unknowing and the ill-informed.

Worse still, they’ve also received verbal hammerings off those who live in The Potteries and are not fortunate to have been blessed in supporting one of the two local football teams. Yes, that’s right, I did say blessed.

Because our success is made so much sweeter by the thoughts of 23 years of pain - getting soaked on the away terrace at Cambridge; sliding down the grass bank at Springfield Park; Mr Styles single-handedly robbing us of a Play Off final; losing to our local rivals on too many occasions etc, etc……

“23 years of character building”, I like to call it. But this one moment in the sun will be worth all of those knocks, disappointments and heartaches.

Anyway, back to Bunny jnr and his formative years.

School holidays would see my old man set off for work in the car, like thousands of other good honest Potteries folk, at the Michelin factory. But in the days when you didn’t have to take your front door step in last thing at night, he didn’t bat an eyelid at taking me and my older brother with him and depositing us at the Victoria Ground whilst he made his way down Campbell Road.

There we would walk in through either a gate or even the players’ entrance and watch the first team train. This more often than not involved them running around the cinder track which bordered the Vic’s pitch, and then disappear out to the training pitches by the D road for a game of 5 a side. Nothing too strenuous, as you didn’t want to be too tired that you couldn’t put a bet on or prop the bar up in the Victoria Hotel over the road!

There’d be a number of other likeminded souls who ventured down to watch their heroes train. Stars they might have been, but they were accessible stars. Getting your hair ruffled by a current international in 2008 might lead to a front page exclusive in the News of the World, followed by court proceedings, but in those days footballers were almost your mates.

Youngsters had such a natural affinity and bond with their local football club that it was second nature for players to sign autographs without being asked. I don’t actually think copyright existed in 1976, never mind players actually writing their number under their squiggle like they’re some big-time Charlie.

My prized possession was a bright orange autograph book. It was a constant companion on my visits to the Vic and was full to brimming with names such as Shilton, Greenhoff, Conroy and the like. But the big difference between then and now was that I never felt starstruck as youngsters do nowadays.

Football clubs were, and should always be, the centre point of the community. There should be no ‘us and them’ scenario at all. I don’t begrudge players earning fortunes and having flash motors, but I do wince when I see how some have treated members of the local community over the years.

You might think that promotion would widen this gap between the club and its community, but I feel it will simply make this bond even stronger. We’ve seen all season the lads in red and white stripes put effort in above and beyond the call of duty. What it has seemingly done is removed the friction evident between the pro and anti-TP brigade, and unified our support behind a common cause. Vis Unita Fortior (United strength is stronger – the club motto), twenty first century style.

The football club, whilst no means perfect, is a long way on the road to becoming that football club in 1976. A club for the community to be proud of.

At lunchtime, dad used to come down to the ground and we’d all end up in the players/supporters club (later known as the Stanley Matthews Suite, I think) which was on the corner of the Boothen Stand and Boothen End. The old man would have a pint and a sarnie and we would be sat next to some of the best players ever to don the stripes. Once again, we didn’t think anything of it. It was the norm.

Now before you think Bunny senior simply didn’t care about his kids and simply palmed them off on anyone let me tell you that afternoons were not quite as scintillating. We’d end up with pop and crisps sat in his car on the ‘Mich’ car park until he clocked off. My, how my holidays just flew by.

So, cue 30-odd years later and I’m starting to feel like a big kid myself once more. I couldn’t get to Layer Road for the penultimate game of the season, and to be honest beambacks and the radio make me even more nervous so I went to watch Meir Heath play Hem Heath in a local cricket league to take my mind off things.

My stomach had felt like the executioner’s blade was fast approaching for some time. Even some pupils and staff at the school I teach at were asking me why I looked like I was about to give birth! The wife, bless her, just didn’t understand just how I could be so hung up about a football match – “why don’t you worry about things that are important?”, was her stock question to my fretting. Any answer would have simply been negated by her lack of footballing nous. A bit of sympathy and a cold beer in my hand would have sufficed, though.
Superstition meant that I only listened to the radio at 20 minute intervals – 3.20pm; 3.40pm; half time and 4.20pm

At 4.20pm, as the cricketers trooped off for tea, I could take it no more. I knew the scores were all in our favour, and I knew that if I were to join the throng in the pavilion I would be a bag of nerves.

So I drove, and drove. Thirty minutes later I returned and the scores were exactly the same. It was now 4.50pm and it was injury time at Layer Road. Being a superstitious Stoke fan probably isn’t good for the health or soul, so I took myself off down to the far end of the Willow Lane ground, well away from the tv. “”I’ll be safe here”, I thought as play resumed, “if I sit here and avoid the score, it won’t change”.

I’ve only just stopped and thought about why a 39 year old man, married with two kids and a mortgage, should be sat on his own, in a different postcode to anyone else at a cricket match, when his team are playing the other end of the country. I still don’t get it now. But I would do it again if the circumstances were the same on any given Saturday! That’s football. Nothing else comes close to instilling fear, pride, resentment, bliss and all the other emotions in between.

And now we have gone up it’s this city’s kids that I’m happiest for. This promotion will be a selfless one for me. Whilst I was uncontrollably happy (and inebriated) on Sunday, what is a lot more pleasurable for me is the ‘lost generation’ of Potteries youngsters being able to feel just like I did three decades ago.

There’s a bloke who phones in the local radio station who called himself Pottermouth. He’s being doing it every Friday for a few months now, but recently he composed a battle cry called ‘Do eeet!’. A three minute ode to footballing and non-footballing heroes of our city which really has caught the imagination (it doesn’t take much!) of the local population. This has also galvanised support, and hopefully has also set itself into the sub conscience of our city’s youth. Whilst being a rousing call to arms in our push for the promised land, it also, in a light-hearted way, shows the values and heritage of our city. For me, its pertinence is in its plea for something, anything, nice to happen to Stoke-on-Trent and its inhabitants.

If points were given out for coming top of various derogatory articles/polls on where not to live, or lowest average wage, or sickest city – then we would already be polishing the Championship trophy. Stoke-on-Trent has had its fair share of sand kicked in its face by the plums in the national media. Cheap stereotyping and generalisations are obviously far easier to write than the truth. It’s the people that make a city, not its architecture.

Although many visiting supporters will unfortunately have scare stories about a visit to Stoke, most will recognise that we are a proper football club, whose supporters are as parochial and fiercely proud as any in the land. Perhaps it’s our geographical position, being virtually slap bang in the middle of England? To many we’re neither north, south, east, west or midlands. And in a way, that suits us fine – an independent Republic of Stoke? Er, maybe not then.

But gaining promotion is not for me about watching my football club at Anfield, Old Trafford etc. Been there and done that, and let’s be honest, the thought of spending £49 to watch us at Stamford Bridge is obscene (back to lowest wages/tight northerner syndrome etc).

And it’s not about bragging rights in the pub with my Port Vale-supporting mates. Whilst the odd one-liner might be slipped into conversations, they know as fellow suffering supporters, what the score is – even if they don’t wash!

What I want is for the pitches, parkland and PE changing rooms of my city to be full of the colours of both its football teams. I want this generation to have a true identity about where they live and what it stands for and not to take the soft and easy option of having Fly Emirates or AIG on their chest. I want to see smiles on people’s faces as they go about their everyday business up ‘Anley. I want this city to be regenerated, reborn and be a fitting place for the best folk in the country to live in.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve read some unbelievably touching stuff in the media and on the internet, mostly on The Oatcake (Stoke zine) website. Only last week I read the story of a young Stoke supporting girl who, in her brave father’s own words, “has a brain tumour and due to it's devastating effects it has taken the sight in her left eye and has left her with only tunnel vision in her right eye. Please Lord let our Daughter see Stoke gain automatic promotion before god forbid she ever loses her precious remaining sight. We’ll be there against Leicester the same as we have all season so please Stoke do it, please do it for our Daughter.”

This is what football does to people. It really can change people’s lives. So now we’ve managed to do what no other Stoke team has for over two decades, you’ll find me in the Gardener’s Retreat pub raising my first ‘Pedigree’ since Stoke entered the Premiership in honour of the youth of our city. I want them to feel how I did 30 years ago.

Welcome to Stoke City – Premier League. Has a certain ring to it, doesn’t it?

And don’t forget your orange autograph book!