349 replies to this topic

[ImNotReallyHere]

Alpha Signia, on 29 January 2012 - 07:57 PM, said:

I'm going to a Besiktas game in the near future. Know a Turkish Besiktas fan.

Looks amazing. Only holds 30k but it looks like it will be memorable!

Absolutely amazing mate, although they didn't like it when we went 1 up.

Upson decided we didn't want to win anyway and hacked down one of their players in the area to get himself sent off, stupid tackle, luckily we were already through.


Also the nicest bunch you could meet, Turks have a bad reputation that is unfounded, well the ones I met anyway. Went into a cafe bar after the game oblivious to their big supporters group being in there (Carsi), but they made us sit down, had a sing along and bought us drinks all night, absolutely brilliant!

[TimRam]

Stoke have Crawley away in next round.

[ImNotReallyHere]

TimRam, on 29 January 2012 - 10:39 PM, said:

Stoke have Crawley away in next round.

Looking forwards to it actually, want to see why so many people hate them!

froggg, on 29 January 2012 - 06:56 PM, said:

Have you been to Barbados though ......oh and enjoy the ride while you can......it'll grind to a halt sometime soon.....your setup is unsustainable in the med-long term......Well 'done' yesterday and good look for the rest of the competition

Our setup? We made about a £6m loss last year, which was covered by Bet365. Not really a lot cosidering how much we spent on players. Coates has invested heavily into the ground, the training complex and the academy, and has always said his long term goal was to make us self-sustainable(or as close as a club can be with all these extortionate wages). As said, we are owned by Bet365 essentially, which is run by Peter Coates, his daughter and his son-in-law, so after Coates is gone we are still in a good position.

Granted, we can't splash out nearly £30m each transfer window, but we have slowly improved over the last 5 years, so it's worth it both short and long term.

We won't get relegated under Pulis either, he has it hard wired into his brain, we always fight and scratch our way the first half of the season to get the points required for safety. When he feels safe enough we start playing some pretty good football, albeit a physical version, as seen at the FA cup sem-final, Arsenal at home, Spurs away and others.


You're right it won't last forever, but we're enjoying it!

[Alpha Signia]

ImNotReallyHere, on 29 January 2012 - 10:37 PM, said:

Absolutely amazing mate, although they didn't like it when we went 1 up.

Upson decided we didn't want to win anyway and hacked down one of their players in the area to get himself sent off, stupid tackle, luckily we were already through.


Also the nicest bunch you could meet, Turks
have a bad reputation that is unfounded, well the ones I met anyway. Went into a cafe bar after the game oblivious to their big supporters group being in there (Carsi), but they made us
sit down, had a sing along and bought us drinks all night, absolutely brilliant!

Am a bit nervous tbh mate. Sitting with thousands of Turks in a league game with no Englishman in sight isn't what id imagined ever doing. But I'm also looking forward to it. I shouldn't believe the media stuff either. The lad taking me is a top bloke. Wouldn't cause trouble in a million years. The sort of noise we all dream of.

[StaffsRam]

Stoke were one of the few clubs to actually benefit from the collapse of ITV digital when it went. Largely because you were one of the few clubs not spending money like it was going out of fashion and indebting yourselves up to the eyeballs.

By contast our lot were running up credit like it was the end of the world.

[ImNotReallyHere]

Alpha Signia, on 29 January 2012 - 10:57 PM, said:

Am a bit nervous tbh mate. Sitting with thousands of Turks in a league game with no Englishman in sight isn't what id imagined ever doing. But I'm also looking forward to it. I shouldn't believe the media stuff either. The lad taking me is a top bloke. Wouldn't cause trouble in a million years. The sort of noise we all dream of.

You'll be absolutely fine, I remember some Doncaster(Darlington? Something beginning with a D) came on the Oatcake message board after the game, said he was in the home end when we played them. They just assumed he was a Stoke fan, but then a few got talking to him and found out he wasn't, they wouldn't have minded if he was a Stokie anyway. I think it's if you are a Galatasaray fan or a Fenerbache fan you need to worry .

The media stuff is based around the Leeds fans right? That was because Leeds fans were being ***** on foreign soil, a massive no-no as I'm sure you'll all agree. They were disrespecting the Turkish flag. Also that was Galatasaray, from what I could work out the really rough parts of the city were the Muslim bits, and I think Galatasaray are a Muslim club, Besiktas are a secular club. Could be way out with this though.

Hopefully you'll see flares, they didn't do any for us because they have been warned they will get kicked out of european competition if they persist, funnily enough it was Stokies with the flares , but that youtube video of when they played Man U is amazing.

StaffsRam, on 29 January 2012 - 11:00 PM, said:

Stoke were one of the few clubs to actually benefit from the collapse of ITV digital when it went. Largely because you were one of the few clubs not spending money like it was going out of fashion and indebting yourselves up to the eyeballs.

By contast our lot were running up credit like it was the end of the world.

A good point, but I don't really think so, we weren't in great financial shape before or after this collapse, it was only when Coates came back did we progress, and he wiped out any debt, would have wiped out more if he had to as he's making up for mistakes when he was the owner previously.

[CumbrianRam]

Hope you thrash Crawley 20-0 anyone in the lower/non-league knows how much of a t*** Steve Evans is.

[StaffsRam]

ImNotReallyHere, on 29 January 2012 - 11:19 PM, said:

A good point, but I don't really think so, we weren't in great financial shape before or after this collapse, it was only when Coates came back did we progress, and he wiped out any debt, would have wiped out more if he had to as he's making up for mistakes when he was the owner previously.

Even when you weren't that well off though, it's a safe bet that you weren't running up a £50m+ line of credit.

[young ram15]

SillyBilly, on 29 January 2012 - 11:23 AM, said:

The atmosphere one is a bit rich, reverse the tables where there was a large Derby contingent in Stoke in the league cup and we heard NOTHING from the Stoke fans the entire game apart from one lacklustre delilah in about the 80th minute. I can remember it because it was that bad. It does annoy me the credit they get in the prem when you realise how poor, empty and sterile the Britannia was in the championship- I think some Stokies have too short memories.

It also doesn't help we have to surrender some of our most vocal support and redistribute them god knows where to accomodate large cup followings.

exactly, i remember when we used to play you in the league, it used to be empty (apart from our end) no atmosphere (apart from our end) and bloody freezing. I also remember you bringing feck all fans down to pride park when you were where we are now.

[ImNotReallyHere]

young ram15, on 30 January 2012 - 01:08 AM, said:

exactly, i remember when we used to play you in the league, it used to be empty (apart from our end) no atmosphere (apart from our end) and bloody freezing. I also remember you bringing feck all fans down to pride park when you were where we are now.

The big difference with us then and you now is that you've had a much more successful period before. It was 28 years before we got to the top division again, that's a whole generation, especially when gloryhunting became a lot more prevalent. Your crowds were bigger because of having a better period, and with a lot staying with you, their children will be Derby fans too.

This is hopefully what we are going through now, local kids will pick Stoke instead of going for the easy gloryhunting options.

I'm sure you all see where I'm coming from, nearly every club would sell out if it wasn't for local gloryhunters, and Stoke did have a massive proportion of them.


And yes the Brit is cold.