I fucking hate Stoke.
Usually I just hate them in the build-up and aftermath to us playing them, but take great pleasure in other teams struggling against them. No more. Maybe it's some newly found solidarity from other teams, or maybe it's just after however many years, I resent having to watch Tony Pulis' black arts. Like Sam Allardyce on Red Bull, trying to push the envelope and tour the ugliest back alleys for any way to get through a football match. Maybe each human being has a finite amount of space in their lives they can accept Stoke being part of, and I've exceeded mine. Whatever it is, I fucking hate Stoke.
I fucking hate their alehouse tactics. I fucking hate that a Stoke shirt seems to grant players a certain immunity. I hate that because referees expect Stoke to be overly physical, that seems to allow them - in their own tiny little minds - the excuse for Stoke to be overly physical. I'm sick of their fucking back four, all of whom look like proper Rugby League Town twats, smacking their way around the league. Wilkinson's elbows, Huth's stamp, Ryan Shawcross and his peculiar brand of footballing Jiu-Jitsu. In midfield you've got cynical shites fucking Whitehead, who takes great pleasure in mastering the poorly timed trip, or Charlie Adam who is just tugboat slow and reckless. Top it off with that twat Waters upfront. God I hate him. He's got the face of a badger baiter. Just a horrible, horrible collection players.
It's not a surprise though is it? In Tony Pulis you've got a really vile manager. Him and his stupid fucking baseball cap. All his pundit mates laugh off his teams; "well if you knew Tony as a player you'd know what his teams are like" - there's a fucking reason no one knows what sort of player he was. They simply don't care to remember some lower league yard dog, and cringe that they have to watch a team in his image. I'll give Pulis some credit though, never has a manager captured the essence of a town and it's people so well in how their team plays football than Stoke. He's such a horrible, overly macho twat. The poster boy for British footballing culture, where a dive is sneaky and insidious and thus far worse than breaking a players leg with a horror tackle, elbowing someone in the face or stamping on their chest. The man has managed to usurp Mark Hughes and Sam Allardyce as the Wannabe Alpha of the league.
The fans, in amongst it all, I have some twisted sense of sympathy for. Tony Pulis' own personal Volkssturm of outcasts, trudging along every (other) week out of some misplaced sense of duty. Duty to protect their birth place. All off on a march to their death. A football death. A football death that couldn't be further removed from the one Rodgers speaks of. Off to the windy vortex of misery, void of hope. the great architecture of schadenfreude. "If we can't enjoy football then neither can you". The essence of Stoke.
Stoke. That horrible fucking verb.
1) Stoke.
To remove joy and purpose from the occasion
Tony Pulis was delighted to stoke Liverpool at the football match
Just fuck off, Stoke. Not even down the lower leagues, because if that happens some poor twat will be stuck paying to watch his team run the Stoke gauntlet, being told to 'embrace' the challenge. Nah. Fuck that. Fuck this idea that defeating Dr Pulis' Monster is some kind of footballing achievement. They're removed almost entirely from the sport. Stoke a horrid mixture of shotput, 11 players cynically fouling on rotation, and set pieces. That's the fucking Stoke credo right there. If it's not a set play you can't control what's happening, so you foul, and get another set play.
I'm not against physicality in football. I'm not against the odd bit of cynicism. But I'm not having the defence of Stoke. It's pure anti-football. They routintely turn up to games against any team to make sure the ball is out of play as much as possible. That is not a worthwhile tactic. Wouldn't wish it on anyone.
Fuck off you oatcake munching twats.
Originally Posted by McNamara That Ghost...
The Realist
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