Thank You Roy Keane...

These are intriguing times in football. In recent years we have seen a dramatic shift in the way football clubs are being run with the Premier League attracting the world’s top foreign coaches. There are even two Italians at the helm of Ireland (which is less shocking than Big Jack’s appointment actually), and England.

Mr. Walter Winterbottom must be gyrating in his grave.

There has also been Roy Keane’s abrupt end at Sunderland, who incidentally, are still embroiled in one of the most exciting relegation battles in PL history.

But for me, the most invigorating and most bizarre story in football at present is the rise of my beloved Stoke City who, after years of degradation, find themselves rubbing shoulders with English football’s elite once again.

And heck, they might even survive in this division.

When I moved to Ireland, I assumed I had relinquished any hope of watching my local team Stoke City on a regular basis. Gloomily I accepted I’d condemned myself to a life of listening to Stoke City on the radio via the internet.

Occasionally I might be lucky enough to watch the mighty Potters (in a third round FA Cup game versus Bolton or someone) from the back room of a deserted Irish pub, as I listlessly attempted to explain to a polite-but-obviously-uninterested fella, where exactly Stoke-on-Trent is (It's closer to Manchester than Birmingham), who indeed comes from there (the Captain of the Titanic actually), and how important the Potteries (supplying the world with vintage china and earthenware) used to be (Pre-Thatcher).

And this of course, would be on condition no Rugby or Gaelic matches—with any whiff of significance—were not on another channel, or in deed SUNDERLAND were not on Setanta.

It seemed I had incarcerated myself to a life of torment.

That was until Stoke made a shock but triumphant return to the Promised Land and prior to Keane’s demise up the raod at Sunderland.

Now I, along with my fellow long-suffering Stokies, are proudly watching our team each week on television (if we can't get to the match like myself), and our ardour seems to be emanating across the globe. It all seems so surreal.

And would you believe, since Keane’s resignation, the throngs of Irish Sunderland supporters are thinning out in Irish public houses faster than Roy Keane had poor old Niall Quinn reaching for the company chequebook. Fickle I know.

You see, Stoke are fastly becoming everyone’s favourite underdog and judging by the sheer noise level of our support this season, I am ecstatic to see Potter’s fires have been well and truly re-ignited.

Stoke for me are the new Sunderland FC, minus the Irish bandwagon that I hope will soon follow: those which mysteriously came out of the woodwork when Keane joined Sunderland, swearing blind they had followed the Black Cats since the days of Gabbiadini (classy goalscorer from '80s and early '90s) and the legend that was John Byrne (not so great goal-getter with 22 Caps for The Irish Republic).

With a few decent Irish acquisitions of our own and our new underdog mantle in full swing, I am confident it won’t be long before Stoke City catch on over here (Ireland) and potentially even more places across the world. Because this team has heart, a spirit reminiscent of Joe Kinnear's cult heroes of not so long ago: "The Crazy Gang." And if we do survive, we've got every chance of becoming as popular.

Stoke do not just adopt a similar style of football as Sunderland did a few seasons ago; possessing their never-say-die spirit, or simply share workmanlike qualities akin to the Wear-siders; Stoke embody a unity which Roy Keane has instilled at Sunderland, one which ultimately has won both teams promotion to the PL and will serve them 'great guns' in any relegation dogfight.

The correlation between these two forgotten northern cities doesn’t stop there, and the similarities between the two clubs, dare I say it, are there in red and white (sorry I couldn’t resist!).

Not only are these two once heavily industrial cities (now a vanished landscape) of similar size and stature, but the working-class inhabitants are of corresponding nature also. And despite Sunderland being far more successful in the first half of last century, many parallels can be made in both club’s illustrious histories.

Stoke City are the second oldest football club in the world, and inaugural members of the football league. But in that first season, unable to compete with likes of Preston, Burnley, and Blackburn, Stoke finished bottom of the table and were controversially voted out of the top division.

Their replacement (yes you guessed it) were Sunderland AFC and to add insult to injury, Sunderland—the first club outside the midland/northwest region of England to compete in the football league—played in the same red and white stripes famed by the Potters.

Some hundred years later and Stoke City were relegated from the top division in 1984/5 with a record lowest points tally. Some 20 years later, and who else but Sunderland were relegated with fewer.

And finally, if it wasn’t enough that the old Roker Park looked suspiciously identical to Stoke’s famous Victoria Ground, the Black Cat's new stadium is a carbon copy of the Britannia.

It is no great surprise then that ‘The Mackems’ were starting to get right up my nostrils.

This season has seen a massive shift in company policy at Stoke City; whom hitherto, had always been a selling club. Not only have transfer records being unceremoniously smashed; investing in players who undoubtedly possess the quality to keep us in this division, but the club, to its credit, has managed to keep hold of its most talented ones for once.  

Even if Stoke City do go down, this is an intrepid step in the right direction for a club used to letting go players with even an iota of potential (Garth Crooks, Paul Bracewell, Adrian "Inchy" Heath, Peter Beagrie, Steve Bould, Lee Dixon, Mark Stein, and Mike Sheron to name just a few).

At a club, where over the years, the fans had lost all confidence in the board (and at times the feeling has been mutual) the Whelan, Ab. Faye, Etherington and James Beattie signings, arguably players of PL quality, at discount prices, have been massive coups for Stoke City and it sends out a message of promise to the club’s loyal supporters. The manager and his admirable Chairman Mr Coates have to be commended.

If we do get relegated, the increasingly difficult task of returning would be made immeasurably easier if the services of such astute acquisitions as those mentioned were retained.

The signings of two other Irish midfielders, furthermore, whom Keane atypically decided to let go at the start of his managerial reign up at Sunderland, have been huge factors in Stoke’s remarkable rise to prominence.

Stokies, like myself, are eternally grateful to Keane for gifting us with these two Anglo-Irish gemstones. I personally would like to say thank you to Mr Keane.

Lawrence (£500,000 scoring 13 goals last season) and Delap (free and Stoke’s most consistent performer) have been our two outstanding players in recent times and a clear indication of Tone’s (as he’s affectionately known on the Potteries) shrewdness in the transfer market. The manager deserves all the kudos that is inevitably thrown his way.

Although Keane did spend a hell of a lot of cash in his time at Sunderland (no wonder himself and Quinny didn’t get along!), he has left the club in good shape, and I am sure they’ll stay in this division for many years to come. His irrepressible presence, however, will be sorely missed both at Sunderland and in football on the whole.

Nevertheless, wouldn’t it be ironic if the two Irishmen, whom Keane cast aside, and another in Glenn Whelan, that Keane surprisingly missed out on, were the reasons behind Stoke City’s survival in the Premier League?

And wouldn’t it just be poetic justice if it were Sunderland who were relegated this time around? This is in no way partaking in the revelry of schadenfreude, more like retribution, albeit taking 128 years for it to come to fruition.

Keane, more than anybody, knows that success is borne from adversity, and it’s for these reasons, together with how much it means to the people of the Potteries, that I am so desperate for Stoke City to stay in top fight football.

And if my dreams are realized, we remain in the Premier League for at least one more season, and we also sign a few more Irish players; I wonder if, whilst watching my beloved Stoke City live on television in an Irish alehouse, I’ll be sitting alone. Or will I be joined by a bunch of brogues, all shouting for the mighty Potters?

It is a beautiful notion…

This Article also features on The English Football Post