Running Out Of Credit

Well, a lot has happened since my last blog, hasn’t it?!

It was doom and gloom before the Blackburn match – people talking about “must wins” and so on, now its three wins later and we have the last 32 of the Europa League to look forward to – and what a tie too!

So there’s nothing to moan about, right?!

Well so you’d think, but something has vexed me hugely in the last week or so. Indeed we have seen prime examples of it recently.

It happened Sunday and has been happening since, and it happened on Wednesday.

It’s been happening since promotion and no doubt will continue to do so.

Simply put, Stoke City do not get any credit for anything that we do. And I will go further – the mainstream media wants us to lose.

On Sunday we had one of our finest ever days in the Premier League. Our players worked like Trojans and beat a team that many were tipping to win the league this season.

Yes we had some luck along the way, of course we did. But it made up for the game last season when the same referee managed to miss a ball that went behind the line and lets not start talking about all the other decisions that went against us and continue to do so, shall we?

It is the opinion of this blog that moaning about referees is pointless and stupid. And I have written as such on numerous occasions both on here and in other mediums, however that works both ways. We will not be embarrassed when we get some luck go our way for once.

But no, whenever we have a good win, like Liverpool earlier in the season, or Spurs it seems that these things get analysed to the limit. Instead of focussing on our heroic defensive display against King Kenny’s men, all we heard was our penalty should never have been given and they should have had three of their own.

After the Spurs game the same thing happened. Shawcross is an animal (and I am not convinced the foul on Kabul was a penalty) we handballed it, we did this, that and the other, oh and there was some absurd nonsense about Ryan Shotton’s throw-ins.

Then on Wednesday I am sat watching the Besiktas game and the commentators were seemingly desperate for us to lose. I honestly believe that if Ricardo Fuller hadn’t been so unlucky with that header, or Matt Upson hadn’t been sent off we would have won the game, but listening to Stewart Robson and Jim Proudfoot you would have thought we were being destroyed. The classic from Robson was “Higginbotham went to sleep for the goal, he’s had a poor game.” Despite the fact it was actually Rory Delap who failed to mark.

So in the interests of fairness here are some facts for Robson, Proudfoot and anyone else who wants them:

Since we went up in 2008 we have performed fantastically. Three mid-table finishes, an FA Cup Final, a League Cup Quarter Final and while we are at it we are the only British team to Qualify from the Europa League to the knockout stages, in our first European campaign for 40 years.

With all due deference to my Stoke bias I would argue that no other club has gone up in recent years and performed so well. The likes of Bolton – who are frequently held up as a benchmark – and Charlton went up and down before they established themselves, which touch wood we haven’t looked like doing – rocky spell in November notwithstanding.

If that was any other club the pundits would be hailing the rise as meteoric. The pundits loved the likes of Blackpool, Hull and now Swansea and Norwich, and why? Because the perception of us is we are horrible, we foul and we play long ball.

Now I really couldn’t care less how we play the game, in fact I like direct football.  What I don’t like is my club getting no credit for its achievements.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion of course, and certainly as Stoke City supporters we are allowed to gripe and to moan and to react to defeats in any way we please. I don’t write these things through rose tinted spectacles, nor do I think everything at Stoke City is perfect, but we are entitled to a fair hearing from those who are supposed to be impartial.