bet365 Stadium: Stoke City 1-1 Manchester United

Thursday 1 January 2015

Stoke City 1-1 Manchester United

Aerial shot of the Britannia Stadium (MultiMap)

Programme - £3.50

Ratings

Overall Ground Quality : 8/10

Ease of getting there : 9/10

Atmosphere : 8/10

Programme : 9/10

View of Action : 5/10

Quality of the game : 7/10

The "football" feeling : 8/10

Chances of coming here for a random game : 7/10

Legroom : 7/10

Surrounding area : 6/10

Overall : 74/100

East Stand

Sir Stanley Matthews Statue

The Boothen End

West Stand

West Stand

Club Offices and South Stand

South Stand

West Stand

The Boothen End

East Stand

The Video Screen

Manchester United Supporters in the South Stand

West Stand

The Boothen End

East Stand

West Stand

The Boothen End

East Stand

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Stoke City 0-5 Leicester City

My (Adrian) first visit to the Bet365 Stadium since early 2016 when Premier League fare was on offer. How times have changed, numerous managers and what seems like a club making very little progress. They have filled in one of the corners of the stadium since my last visit joining two stands together but you wonder why, the area was completely empty. This second tier game was very much a one sided affair as league leaders Leicester City outclassed Stoke City. Indeed some would say the score should have been even more emphatic. Leicester were excellent, Stoke I’m afraid a shambles. Leicester were 2-0 up in half an hour. A Patson Daka tap in after an excellent cross into the box by Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall had been headed across goal by the dangerous Fatawu. The second was a deflected shot by Kasey McAteer wrong footing the keeper as it came off the luckless Ben Wilmot. McAteer was lucky to stay on the field after an altercation with Stoke captain Wouter Burger. He pushed Burger to the ground receiving a yellow card, it could easily have been red. Not surprisingly he was withdrawn at half time. Stoke immediately made subs into the second period, 4 substitutes on after 60 minutes, they did pose a bit more menace but Leicester appeared to cope. A Daka penalty on 66 minutes wrapped up the game after Wout Faes’ buccaneering run was ended by a foul from Jordan Thompson. With the game won, Leicester boss Enzo Maresca started to bring players off after a hectic week and substitutes were quickly involved in the action in the best goal of the day. James Justin and Jamie Vardy combining for a 4th goal on 78 minutes. Brilliant play by the visitors, the move started in their own penalty area, Winks found Justin on the right and his wonderful low cross was fired home by 37 year old Jamie Vardy. Vardy still has the energy and pace of someone 10 years younger and he wasn’t finished yet scoring a penalty 8 minutes into stoppage time after a Leicester break away came to an unceremonious end Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall being brought down by Michael Rose. The stoppage time board of 8 minutes was greeted with boos from the home fans, they just wanted the game over many had already headed for the exits 30 minutes before. They have had a disappointing last few years of false hope and clearly enthusiasm is not high, we never even got a rendition of Delilah. Only time will tell whether Steven Schmacher’s decision to leave Plymouth for the Potteries was a wise one. On today’s showing, he has a big job on his hand. It will need time, will he get it I wonder? For Championship leaders Leicester, their best result and performance of the season, they could have scored more such was the gulf in class. Can anyone deny them a return to the Premier League? A very happy journey home across the A50 for the sell-out away section

Stoke City 1-1 Manchester United

A matter of hours into 2015 and we were already on our first trip of the New Year! For those who have been following our journey, I (Ross) completed my 92 in November at Gillingham. With a large number of fixtures during Christmas and New Year, we were tempted go to a local fixture. With all our options considered, we decided to visit the Britannia Stadium where Stoke City was to take on Manchester United. A major factor for this choice was due to Adrian missing the famous Leicester City victory against Manchester United earlier on in the season and missing out seeing Manchester United.

Adrian managed to get two tickets which were a row apart and fairly low down. For such a premium fixture, ticket prices were inflated to £40.00 each!

Being a 12:45pm kick off, we left at 9:30am making our journey down the A511 towards Tutbury and joining the A50 until we reached the outskirts of Stoke-On-Trent. We parked in Fenton off Grove Road and walked along the footpath to the Britannia Stadium crossing the A50 over a footbridge.

After a 10 minute walk, we found ourselves outside the Britannia Stadium where we took some photos as we walked around the stadium before getting a cup of tea from a burger van outside the Harvester pub.

Once we finished our brew, we decided to cross the road and walk down a footpath to the stadium before going through our turnstiles.

The Britannia Stadium cost £14.7million to construct on the former site of Hem Heath colliery. Building work began in late autumn 1996 and was completed in August 1997. The all-seater stadium holds 28,383 supporters (although this has been reduced to 27,500 for the 2008/2009 season due to segregation) in four cantilever stands. The main West stand consists of two tiers of seating which house 7,357 spectators, plus all of the Stadiums corporate and media facilities. The L-shaped Boothen and East stands hold 6,006 and 8,789 people respectively. The South Stand, which is used mainly for away support can accommodate 4,996 people. Due to the capacity being under 30,000, it is not eligible to be a UEFA 4 star stadium. If it was above this capacity it has all the specifications to be a UEFA 4 Star Stadium. The clubs dressing rooms, offices, boardroom and club superstore are positioned between the West and South stands. Sir Stanley Matthews had his ashes buried under the centre circle of the pitch.

Stoke City were unlucky not to take all three points against Manchester United. Within the first 2 minutes, Stoke took the lead from a corner floated in from the right, headed down by Peter Crouch and was put away by Ryan Shawcross from close range. The Potters could’ve been two-nil up when Mame Diouf beat the remaining defender with only the keeper to beat from 18 yards, yet struck high and wide of De Gea’s post. Next it was Manchester United’s turn to pile on the pressure. A corner from the left was helped on by Michael Carrick, with Falcao finishing from inside the six-yard box to make it 1-1. The second half saw both Peter Crouch denied by the post and a penalty turned down for a Chris Smalling handball. Ashley Young later pulled his hamstring when running for the ball and was shortly substituted putting a finish to his afternoon. Towards the final minutes of the game, both teams were pushing for a winning goal until Michael Oliver blew the final whistle.

We both made a quick dash up the steps into the concourse and out the ground. After battling our way through the crowds, we eventually found ourselves on the footpath back to Grove Road where we parked.

We promptly left Stoke-On-Trent making our way back onto the A50 and A511 back towards the East Midlands and back home for 4pm.

Stoke City 0-1 Birmingham City

The Britannia Stadium, Home of Stoke City. This was a trip I (Ross) have wanted to do for a while as its one of the last Midlands football stadiums in the 92’ which I haven’t been on. For Adrian, he was yet to see a goal at the Britannia Stadium on his previous visits.

We arrived at the Britannia Stadium at 11:30am to pick up our pre-paid tickets from the ticket office before paying a visit to the old Victoria ground to take pictures. Afterwards, we made our way to Grove Road to park the car and walked to the Britannia Stadium to take some pictures of the exterior of the stadium before making our way towards the Harvesters Pub across the road for our pre-match meal.

Just gone 2o’clock, we headed back towards the stadium where this time we made our way into the stadium. After getting a hot drink (£1.60 for all hot drinks), we walked up to our seats to find that they were soaked from the recent snow and rain falls.

The game saw an inform Birmingham City side win 1-0 after Cameron Jerome bundled the ball into the back of the net to seal all three point for the Blues.

After the match we walked back to Grove Road and made our way out of Stoke without any traffic.

Overall our visit to Stoke was very good infront of a fantastic atmosphere (Best out of the 92’ so far!) and an entertaining game. Adrian saw his first goal at the Britannia Stadium and I (Ross) can add this trip onto a vastly growing list of stadiums visited.

Thursday 1 January 2015

Stoke City 1-1 Manchester United

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