STOKE PREVIEW

Next up in our so called winning streak are perennial meat heads Stoke City, a team we only snuck past at Goodison last term due to a gone but not forgotten Yakubu BLAM! from a tight angle. A club finding itself in Europe with a wealthy boyhood fan at the helm. A team that are firmly established now in the Premier League and a side that give any team in the league a right good going over on their day. YEAHWOTEVER. We're compared to these virtually every transfer window too, as how we are falling way behind the pack and need to sort our shit out. I still wouldn't swap diddly squat of what they seem to have for what we've got though. Be it Tony 'I headbutt players in the nude apart from my Baseball hat' Pulis and his lame Mick McCarthy telling it how it is act, or even their louder than a Sam Allerdyce fart stadium that you drive past on the way to Alton Towers. We're fucking Everton and thats fucking that.

 ''Smell My Finger...''

Stoke, with the backing of their BET365 owning chairman have managed to horde a decent group of professionals together over the last few seasons. They all seem to be a bit on the 'industrious' and 'tasty' side though, which invariably makes things a little bit more difficult when trying to sit back and admire their managers approach to winning points. Still, they seem happy enough so who the fuck am i to criticise? We're hardly vying with Brazil '70 and Holland '88 on the lovely footy stakes these days. I think Everton have to hope that their hard fought Thursday night game against Dynamo Kiev will have taken its toll and that they take their eyes and indeed their studs showing flying size 9's off the ball a bit throughout. Seriously though, credit where it is due, Stoke are no longer the plucky game underdogs with fire in their bellies. Looking at their qualifying group in the Europa League you'd have to be a one eyed bellend to write them off as merely Long throw grocks. Its likely to be one long hard pissing slog thats for sure. So lets show some patience.

   

Vellios is pushing for a start here after his goal made him our top scorer and his physicality may be needed against these, Saha versus Huth and Shawcross? No ta. Something which will be just as interesting, will be whether or not Royston Drenthe makes it onto the team sheet, never mind the pitch. His omission against Bolton after his and Moyes inexplicable media catfight the week before has raised many an eyebrow, and depending on what website/rag you read it has raised a certain wily Glasweigians from over yonder. Injured my hoop. Still, we have Bily Whizz to step in should we need some pace/fight down the left. *gulp*

  

Something that should provide inspiration to the team in a tough league fixture like this is our fans. Who have come together unanimously this week with the rest of the footballing community in this country and beyond to express their heartfelt regret and sorrow about the passing of one of our own Gary Speed to suicide. There is a planned minute silence/applause for the ex Everton Captain before the game, where many of his past team mates will be present in order to express their sincere condolences towards his family. I would hope that in some way, our current players (particularly the young ones) would observe this occasion and use it in some way to see how dedication, hard work and a true dignified understanding of what it is to be a fan of a club can bring you in terms of respect from the world around you.

In 2006 I attended the funeral of someone who commanded respect of virtually everybody he met, that of Brian Labone at Liverpool Anglican Cathedral, in my mind more through a sense of duty and belonging, rather than through some sort of mawkish over-sentimentality. Im 31, I never saw Brian Labone play, but being brought up in a staunch Evertonian family you knew what the man stood for and how he felt about the club itself. At the time the only way i could describe what i felt being there paying my respects was that it was ''uniquely Everton''. Labone like Gary Speed possessed something that is so rare in football these days and even days gone by, a Corinthian spirit. 

    

I think it was Bill Kenwright who reminded us at the time that at the foot of Dixie Deans statue are the words 'FOOTBALLER - GENTLEMAN - EVERTONIAN' and this too applied to Brian Labone and latterly Alan Ball. Well, you know the rest...God rest your soul Gary.

UP THE TOFFEE'S.