Hands up, in all the FA Cup build up and drama I've forgotten I'm on the rota to do the Stoke preview. My knowledge of Stoke is wafer thin but I won't let that get in the way of a 'comprehensive' write-up. So, Stoke. What can you say? * A club based in Stokeshire, on the banks of the River Stork. * Famous for making pots ... painting them and then selling them. Mainly to tourists, the Queen and sometimes B&Q. * It's a city and it's very famous cathedral is a hidden gem. * Famous people from Stoke include Beatrix Potter, the chef. There are many others such as Gordon Ramsey, Nigella Lawson and Jamie Oliver although none of them came from Stoke. * Stoke City FC's biggest footballing achievement was winning the FA Cup in successive years in the 1970's. In 1972 they beat Chelsea 2-1 and the following year the familiar red and white ribbons were once again tied to the cup as they beat dirty Leeds 1-0. * Mark Hughes is the current Stoke manager. His father was the late Emlyn Hughes the equally Welsh and ex-Man Utd player. * At the start of the season Stoke pulled off the shock signing of the highly talented Xherdan Shaqiri from Inter Milan. Just like ex Watford player Nathan Ellington, Shaqiri is a muslim who can be seen praying during a match, celebrates Christmas and was also their then record signing. Sadly the similarities end there as Shaqiri clearly can't read a map if he ended up at Stoke, if only the same were true of the lump. So to the game itself, where the excitement of the last few days of FA Cup glory comes crashing down as we fight out a goalless bore draw. C'mon you Orns.
The 4th Official for this fixture is a certain M. Oliver. Let's hope Craig Pawson (the referee) doesn't pick up an injury...
Thanks for your very comprehensive write up!- The only thing I agree with is that your knowledge of Stoke is wafer thin and that's being generous! TBH they do make pots so I will give you that one!
Does Ben Foster count as a chef from Stoke? Wasn't he training as a chef when he joined Stoke City? I quite like pots!
I think Stoke have been on stuttering form of late, will our cup win create some more optimism with this one?
Our players will be hugely confident after beating the Ass & will be well up for it. Also they will all be playing for a starting spot at Wembley. Also looks like Shaqiri might be out. Also Stoke ain't that good anyway. Therefore...We shall win. 40 points on the board at last. Oh yes.
There's always trouble at Stoke City v Stoke Newington derbies. The fans hate each other. One lot claim a chip buttie & black pudding is better for you than new-age hippy-dippy medicine, the other lot say it isn't & it all kicks off.
I would hope that this great cup run isn't going to impact badly on our league form, because despite what many might claim we're not 100% safe, it's obviously better to have a good run going into a cup game than a bad run (unless you're Palace it seems!) and league placings could mean quite a lot to the club in the medium to long run in terms of money, player value and prospective signings. I couldn't help wondering whether the sterile home displays against Bournemouth and Leicester may have partly been down to the players having one eye on Arsenal, and as it turned out I can fully forgive them for thinking that way! Just out of interest, I looked up our league form between the quarter and semi finals during the last five seasons we've reached the semis to see if the cup run made any difference... 1969-1970 - Our first season ever in the second tier under the first great Watford manager Ken Furphy - narrowly avoided relegation by two points (would have been three under the three points for a win system). We'd beaten fifth place Liverpool 1-0 on 21/02/1970, the semi being three weeks later. Results before then: Millwall (h) 1-1 Birmingham (a) 0-0 Hull (h) 1-1 This was part of a five game beaten run that pretty much kept us safe. After the 5-1 hammering at Chelsea (no disgrace as they were the 3rd best team in the country) our form tailed off and after beating Cardiff at home 2-1 we didn't win another game, but fortunately Preston went on a terrible run and Charlton and Villa didn't do enough to catch up and we just needed a draw at Norwich in the final game to confirm our safety. 1983-1984 - Our second season ever in the top flight saw us blessed with European football for the first time after a sensational 2nd place finish in our debut. The campaign was somewhat tougher this time with major injury problems before the signing of Mo Johnson fired us up the league, but we did have the famous cup run to look forward to. After beating Birmingham 3-1 away in the quarters, a whole five weeks elapsed before we played surprise 3rd division contenders Plymouth at Villa Park. Results in the league before then: QPR (h) 1-0 Sunderland (h) 2-1 Ipswich (a) 0-0 Liverpool (h) 0-2 Norwich (a) 1-6 Wouldn't say the cup made much of a difference - we were equally up and down between the semi and final, but nothing anomalous with the season as a whole. 1986-1987 The last season in God's first spell, and our last truly great one. Not as spectacular a run as in 1984 - needed two replays and ultimately an own goal to get past third division Walsall, but it did include one of the famous Watford victories, the 3-1 at Arsenal. Results between quarter and semi finals: Arsenal (h) 2-0 (can we see a repeat?) Aston Villa (a) 1-1 West Ham (a) 0-1 Charlton (a) 3-4 QPR (h) 0-3 Not so good, and Charlton and QPR were poor sides - I think the team was eyeing another cup final (oh dear), as we won four in a row immediately after the Spurs disappointment. 2002-03 The sometimes unfairly maligned Ray Lewington's first season, and considering how low expectations were after the V1alli debacle with little to no money to spend and a ragbag bunch of players of widely varying ability of which little more than a relegation struggle was expected, it was a great one, in which we actually finished up with more points and a higher league place than under the evil Italian. We were remarkably in play-off contention for two thirds of the season despite dreadful away form, but truth be told we were punching above our weight and it wasn't surprising that the cup with its distractions would take its toll on a thin squad. The cup run was amazing, let's not take anything away from that - no goals conceded in the first four rounds, including games against two Premiership sides (OK they were relegated with something to spare but they were still quality Div.1 sides) and a Burnley that had been a real bogey team up until that point, with one of the performances of the season against WBA. Our form had already been dipping towards the Burnley 1/4 final, and it was to get worse - by the time of the crazy game at Burnley when Chopra scored four during his brief loan spell, our league season was over, not looking like going up or down. Still seven points in three consecutive away games (nearly half as many as we'd managed up to that point) should have given the team a bit of confidence going into the Southampton semi. Grimsby (a) 0-1 Gillingham (h) 0-1 Stoke (h) 1-2 Sheff Wed (a) 2-2 Burnley (a) 7-4 Crystal Palace (a) 1-0 2006-07 Our last season with the big boys. Nothing much to say really - we'd got promoted, we were crap, we went straight back down again. Even a somewhat drab and flattering cup run reflected that, where we saved our best performance for Man Utd at Villa Park - and still lost 4-1. By the time of the Plymouth quarters we were as good as down, even if we did briefly creep up above West Ham into 19th place - but then we didn't have Tevez. Results between Plymouth and Man U: Spurs (a) 1-3 Chelsea (h) 0-1 Middlesbrough (a) 1-4 Portsmouth (h) 4-2 (didn't see that one coming, did we) 3 points from 4 games, which equates to 28.5 a season, almost exactly what we ended up with - at least we can say we remained in form! So in conclusion - well, no much to be concluded from that. Only in 1987 and 2003 (which as said above was not surprising) was there any noticeable dip in form during the latter stages of the competition, and in 2007 we were just rubbish as usual. We have a full six weeks not to be distracted by anything, so let's get ourselves back up the league! Back on topic - I'm pretty confident of another double, but Stoke will be tough opponents, if unpredictable and inconsistent - a slightly better version of West Brom results-wise, but with more panache. 1-0 with Deeney scoring again from an Ighalo assist, his first in open play at the Vic.
This will be my first visit to the Vic as a supporter of a PL club! 4 of us heading over, the others have been a couple of times but aren't Watford fans but will definitely be supporting us on Saturday! Any suggestions on a pre-match pub?
It was before the Charlton game that Coton broke his finger, Sherwood was in goal for the Charlton and QPR matches. Even though Sherwood said he was fit on the day of the semi-final GT went with Plumley.
Stoke are so weird. One week they'll turn up and play the opposition off the park, the next they'll be completely dreadful. This game entirely depends on which Stoke team turns up .
You've never been to Burnley then. Lived in Stoke for a year, bit like a working museum in places but I didn't mind it.
I am going to this so can confidently predict the game will be as dull as dishwater and we won't score. Sorry.
But didn't Sherwood also play in goal for the run of four wins in a row? I suppose he was a bit rusty having been out of the first team for so long.
Be nice to carry all the positive vibes in to this game and get the win that takes to 40 points. A win would put to bed any small chance of a relegation battle. stoke can be amazingly good or amazingly bad. Lets hope it is the latter. all their talent going forward the big player for them is Shawcross. a real leader at the back.
Yes Plumley in goal for the semi final which was a disaster, then the following Tuesday Sherwood played a blinder at home to Chelsea, he should have played at Villa park, possibly a bit of the old pals act led to the wine waiter being played as his dad was chief executive, Eddie Plumley!
I think GT felt indebted to Plumbley's dad, even when Sherwood was declared fit he didn't want to let the man down. A strange & plainly wrong decision but all things considered I have to forgive him that one faux pas.
I have for years done a rather odd 'potters wheel' impression on some occasions when we score. This is because years ago dear Dave Crouch used to do this when we played Stoke. I hope it is called into action on Saturday! Dave are you out there?
I believe GT knew we would be releasing Steve at the end of the season, and given the recent games and his totally unfair reputation for being a calamity in goal, which had all been dredged up approaching the semi, he decided to go with Gary Plumley (a thoroughly top bloke as it happens), not wanting to damage Steve's prospects. Graham Taylor loved his loyal players, and as hard as he could be, is a right softie deep down; players like Steve were very special to him. I don't think he would have picked Plumley if he didn't think he was up to it, but sadly he had a bad day at the office, which started with players over protecting him, exemplified by McLelland's own goal, from a shot that was otherwise well covered by the Carleon Wine Waiter. Sadly it got worse. As for us being set on a cup run, we lost that game before we even got on the coaches. We had spare tickets aplenty, and I can't recall anyone thinking we'd win it. And that was from before Steve got his injury. There didn't seem to be any buzz at the club. In the next few league games, Steve played like a demon, receiving praise from no less than Gordon Banks, and promting GT to say that if he'd known Steve would play like this when he got angry, he would have tried to pee-him off more frequently.
I seem to recall when we heard the draw and we got spurs , everyone i knew was defeated already , i even remember being all sad at school the same day
I just had a dream we lost this one nil. Winning goal scored for Stoke by emergency loan signing John Hartson. Gomes had grown a massive handlebar moustache.
Sorry , i`m a little bit past caring about grammar or punctuation on a forum about my football club , soz and all that
Anyone know what time the team bus arrives at Vicarage Road? And if Craig Cathcart gets the team bus?
