Nigel Reo-Coker

[ozzjim]

All this talk about "gamesmanship" - can you please clarify what you mean?

I'd say we are one of the most honest teams in the league. I'm not saying we are squaky clean, Pennant certainly knows how to win a free kick when he wants and I'm sure at times others perhaps have gone down a tad easy but on the whole our players adopt a "stay on your feet" philosophy.

I've seen plenty of teams and players dive and roll around like they've been shot since we've been in this league and I absolutely hate those kind of antics. I can honestly say I haven't seen a Stoke player blatantly dive since we've been in this league. As I said above, there may be some incidents where you can argue somebody has gone down too easily  but thats completely different to diving and trying to con the ref etc.

I absolutely detest the whole diving/surrounding refs/play acting ploys that seem to be more commonplace in the game today and I can honestly say, in my opinion of course, that as a team we don't buy into that and don't use such tactics as gamesmanship.

You can slate us all day long if you like for our style of play (heaven knows we are used to that) but don't compare us to the Arsenal/Man Utd/Chelsea/Barcelona's of this world that make you sick to the back teeth with some of the "tacticts" they use.

Watch you winner against us at your place. If you can swear on your loved ones lives that Pennant has not, a good foot from Petrov, dived on the floor, then you are a very deluded man.

The childish rant as you put it may seem that way, but having paid to watch that game it was 90 minutes I will never get back, largely through time wasting and spoiling from Stoke. Long ball up channel, a minute or so to take the resulting throw. Was your keeper not booked for time wasting too?? It was gamesmanship and cheating. Happy to be rough, happy to dive over, continuous one dimensional tactics.

And it is not my job to work out how to beat Stoke is it. If it were, I would almost certainly not be posting on here.

[dave.woodhall]

Agreed, its a fuck load worse than terrible.

Still, at least Brum ended up with a trophy, you may get some decent European sides descending on the area next season.

Did you write that one yourself?

[Ads]

You guys do realise the part of the country that you are situated in, right?

 

Quite.
It's terrible, but Stoke makes it look like The Garden of Eden.

Is it fuck terrible.

Stoke is, though.

It’s not really fair though to say that, I mean Birmingham is fucking huge. So why it may be squalor for you South Side lot with your Northfields and your Noses, its not so bad for the rest of us.

Either way, Shelton makes Northfield look like Catherine de Barnes.

[Ads]

Agreed, its a fuck load worse than terrible.

Still, at least Brum ended up with a trophy, you may get some decent European sides descending on the area next season.

Did you write that one yourself?

A good portion of them will go to cause trouble and the rest will be there in their curly wigs and face paint like a bunch of day trippers after a Kodak moment.

Then they’ll have to come home. To Stoke and Yardley respectively.

As Greg would say *laugh*. 

[JUAN PABLO]

He's about stokes level.

[The Situation]

Stoke are a disgrace to the game of football, the sooner they're relegated - the better... actually scrap that, the sooner that poxy little club goes into administration and out of existence - the better.

I think I can speak for everyone who supports a club in the Premier League in saying everyone would be very happy to see the back of Stoke. They deploy the most dirty tactics I think I've ever seen. No skill or talent, just anti-football and not to mention that their fans have a reputation of being very racist.

Their manager is a prick, their players are dirty scumbags always causing major injuries to oppossing players, they rely on Rory Delap's party trick for goals, they don't bother to try and play football it's just long balls from them for 90 minutes and constant fouling, extremely boring and to top it all off their fans have strong connections to the BNP.

[PaulTheVillan]

Don't let NRC run with the ball. He'll fall over it.

[PeterWithe]

Have a cuppa and an oatcake mate, the world will seem a better place.

I also wish they'd go down, only because we cant seem to beat the fuckers though.

[Holy Trinity]

i wouldn't let a stoke fan get to you guys. anti football personified although it has made it possible for the small time clubs like stoke (old)bolton and blackburn to realise there dream of staying up in the big time with the likes of us. blues won a cup good for them! they also got relegated and are facing administration was it worth it? we rightly or wrongly opted out of our fa cup quarter final by sending out our 3rd string BUT we stayed up. stoke did well and are a safe 15th-8th kinda club villa are a top 7 team even after our awful season with injurys management changes and player unrest we STILL finished 9th. not bad for a tin pot club from a shit hole in england's second city

[django]

Reading this thread, as a diversion from the unchanging managerial speculation, i came upon this quote from rigadon "Football ia supposed to be entertainment isn't it?  Otherwise what is the point of it all?  Grim loyalty maybe?"

I thought it summed up a lot of the attitudes towards teams like Stoke. Someone else described them as "anti-football", they may be anti-entertainment but that doesn't make them anti-football.

Football is primarily a game for playing not for watching. The aim of the game is to win, not entertain supporters, otherwise we would all be given score cards like come dancing.

Blackpool entertained, Stoke don't. Blackpool are more anti-football than Stoke because they are not as good at football.

[Rudy Can't Fail]

Forget Nigel, Stoke are about to sign Ridgewell, Jerome and life long Stoke fan Craig Gardner according to the Guardian.

[Mister E]

Stoke are a disgrace to the game of football, the sooner they're relegated - the better... actually scrap that, the sooner that poxy little club goes into administration and out of existence - the better.

I think I can speak for everyone who supports a club in the Premier League in saying everyone would be very happy to see the back of Stoke. They deploy the most dirty tactics I think I've ever seen. No skill or talent, just anti-football and not to mention that their fans have a reputation of being very racist.

Their manager is a prick, their players are dirty scumbags always causing major injuries to oppossing players, they rely on Rory Delap's party trick for goals, they don't bother to try and play football it's just long balls from them for 90 minutes and constant fouling, extremely boring and to top it all off their fans have strong connections to the BNP.

Sorry mate, you certainly do not speak for me. And don't presume to speak for such a diverse universe of people.

Ever since Wenger tried to convince the world that there was only One Way of playing the game of football - the Arsenal way - I have happily trumpeted the achievements of teams less blessed with the resources and academy facilities to attract the world's best talent. I have held Stoke up as an example of the different ways in which the game can be played.
I did not enjoy the time-wasting tactics employed by SCFC mentioned above by Chris Smith, but I am certainly not going to disparage them or question their right to exist in the top flight because of their style of football.
Just think back to the days of 2000 and JG's negativity (our last FAC Final was an exemplar of how to lose friends and fans!); think back to the dog-days of DOL and his soul-less approach.
At least the Stokies are having some fun and getting better at it! And winning.

Re NRC, he's a decent enough player who - with the right management and team ethos - will offer good value for money (subject to him not cutting a ridiculous personal deal). 

[not3bad]

i wouldn't let a stoke fan get to you guys.

I think you'll find it was the other way round.  Perils of posting in a forum where everyone supports another team.  And he only came on to find out what we thought of NRC.

[TheSandman]

I agree with the two posts above.

That said Stoke's horrid tendency to take points of us is getting a bit old.

[Holy Trinity]

i wouldn't let a stoke fan get to you guys.

I think you'll find it was the other way round.  Perils of posting in a forum where everyone supports another team.  And he only came on to find out what we thought of NRC.

he is trying to antagonise us by saying birmingham city win things and that now birmingham are in europe they wont get knocked out early on like we did twice. he also indirectly calls birmingham/aston a shit hole! now to me thats activly trying to piss us villa fans off. some of us have done it back so we arnt blame less but this is an aston villa fan site and any fan being condescending towards our fans/team can expect a fair amout of arsy replys. if he only came to chat about coker why speak about bcfc's achievements aswel as if birmingham is a nice area and the fact that mighty stoke keep beating us? sod all to do with reo coker. if he wants banter make a friendly banter thread and theres no problem when it goes so very far off topic. the rest of my post also says stokes style is boring buy effective and that there target is safty year on year and thats also fine so im not exactly being nasty am i?
on reo he was reportedly asking for over 70k a week and if stoke can afford that i'd be stunned. qpr bound i think or mayb rubin kazan