Ricardo Fuller v Andy Griffin: Stoke City's own goal

I hope for his sake that Stoke City striker Ricardo Fuller isn't spotted doing his shopping up Hanley any time soon.
The bargains first revealed in the Boxing Day sales might be tempting, Ric, but I'd keep a low profile if I were you.
For all hell broke loose at Upton Park when Stoke City took on West Ham today. And Fuller was in the thick of it.
Now I know about as much about football as the chiefs in charge at Woolworths apparently know about steering a high street favourite through the choppy waters of a credit crunch.
But I know that Fuller has landed himself in hot water for hitting his team-mate (and captain) Andy Griffin at a time when every point counts for Premier League new boys Stoke City.
And as somebody who knows so little about football, and until recently cared very little about it too, I have to say I'm gutted.
Because some so-called pundits apparently reckon Stoke City shouldn't be in the Premier League. They don't have the skill or the panache of the big boys like Manchester United and Liverpool, these know-it-alls claim.
Well I say balls to that. Stoke getting into football's top-flight is one of the best (and relatively few) positive things ever to happen in the history of the city of Stoke-on-Trent. And the city's people (whether they're football fans or not) need it to continue.
It's good for our name. It should be good for the regeneration of the city. And that has to be good for everyone.
So I'm gutted at Fuller's outburst. You can't deny that passion is to be applauded, but when it spills over into violence, things have gone too far. And besides denying Stoke vital points in their struggle to succeed in the Premier League, I can't help feeling Fuller has committed a PR own goal for the whole city.
He's now facing disciplinary action, a three-match ban, and he'll have his wages docked.
But should he be allowed to pull on a Stoke City shirt again? The fans are raging and many of them say he shouldn't. They're calling on Tony Pulis to get tough and show Fuller the door. They're all kicking off on the website of my local paper, The Sentinel.
With the January transfer window about to open, who knows whether Fuller will be on his way.
And whatever happens, Pulis has got to leave his players in little doubt that this kind of behaviour is bang out of order.
It'll do Stoke City no good in their current campaign, and it'll play straight into the hands of those stuck-up pundits who barely travel past the North Circular and reckon Stoke has no place in football's top league.

Mind over matter for Stoke City

He's the man who can help you overcome the fear of everything from spiders to flying.
Now Jamil Qureshi is a man on a mission close to the hearts of every Stoke City fan.
Yep, it might sound like the Bovril's gone to their heads, but the powers-that-be down the Britannia Stadium have hired Jamil to help the club's fear of (not) flying (high) in the Premier League.
So if the now-legendary Rory Delap is struck by a bout of nerves when it comes to his next long-throw, or Dave Kitson suddenly decides he can't face leaving the dressing room with THAT hair on show, I hope sport psychologist Jamil manages to work his magic.
He's apparently already helped Bolton and has had a call from Nottingham Forest. And if ever there was a recommendation not to be taken lightly, he's said to be a regular on Five's Trisha Goddard show. (Whatever next? Jeremy Kyle?)
Anyway, according to www.whydelilah.co.uk, the online bible for Stoke City fans and readers of my local paper, The Sentinel, he will be on hand at Stoke City training sessions. And he will be helping the Potters deal with all manner of problems, be they professional or personal.
I'm becoming something of a Stoke City fan myself of late. Maybe it's because Stoke are now in the Premier League, which means the biggest clubs in the business parking up for a showdown at The Britannia Stadium.
I've even been to a game. It was all right (the experts tell me it was boring) but I saw Mama Sidibe put one away. That said, the pies were extortionately priced.
But I hope self-styled mind guru Jamil will succeed in working his magic on Stoke City. And despite what some of the whining, whinging, negative 'fans' have to say, I reckon the people of Stoke-on-Trent - whether they're from Burslem, Tunstall, Longton, Fenton, Stoke or Hanley - will too.
Even the Port Vale fans.

The lucky Livesleys are quids in

Well lucky old Jackie and John Livesley from Longton in Stoke-on-Trent.
They probably won't be worrying too much tonight about their credit being crunched.
Nope, the lucky couple of die-hard Stoke City fans have scooped £2.6million on the National Lottery.
They bought their ticket at Morrisons supermarket in Leek, though they nearly didn't because Jackie apparently wanted to avoid the bad weather and stay in, rather than going shopping.
She's doubtless pleased that she pulled on her waterproof now.
I could sit here getting all jealous. But I'm chuffed for this pair of Stokies, whom I've never met.
So too are the general public, if The Sentinel's website is anything to go by.
Why, you might ask? Well I'm no sociologist, but I reckon it's great to see some good news for a change.
Rising bills, job losses, downturn this, slump that. It's almost too grim to get out of bed these days.
So it's nice to know that somebody in Stoke-on-Trent is enjoying some good luck for a change.
I hope they have a fun time splashing all that cash!

Staffordshire University frisbee team ruling is plain mental

When, oh when, will the PC brigade get it? When will they realise that by being so damn right-on and over-sensitive they might as well reach for a rifle and blast themselves in the foot?
No, I've not spent the morning on the BNP website, devouring the Daily Mail and having my head shaved.
But even a leftie like me can't quite believe that a Staffordshire University frisbee team called Mental Discs has been ordered to change its name, because it could "potentially" offend people with mental health problems.
I know who's mental here. The hard-left loons at the Students' Union, that's who.
According to The Sentinel, my local paper in Stoke-on-Trent, the name Mental Discs has been used by the team since it was founded in 2002.
Only now, six years on, the union is calling for the name to be changed to "avoid distress" to other students with mental health problems.
Students' Union president Fiona Wood reckons "mental is a derogatory word in many contexts". And what's behind this over-reaction? Good old "equal opportunities".
"As a union we have equal opportunities, a number of students do have issues in this area and it only takes one complaint and it would be out of hand," she says. "When the nickname went on the team's official papers this year alarm bells rang and we agreed the name was not suitable."
Give me a break. The word mental is no more offensive than "Discs".
These days it can mean anything... off-the-wall... really enjoyable... fantastic. Just ask your average 14-year-old to stop texting for a minute and they'll tell you.
You'll note there have been no complaints from anybody unfortunate enough to be afflicted with mental ill-health. And it'd be nonsense for them to complain anyway.
Staffordshire University are playing into the hands of the idiots who may think it funny to have a laugh about the mentally-ill.
And they also play straight into the hands of those with more extreme views. "What's the world coming to?", they'll declare. And who could blame them?
That the university could over-react in such a way is enough to leave any right-thinking person feeling depressed. They should agree an about-turn immediately.

Anthea Turner's foreign pots gig? Just smashing!

It looks like the fragrant Anthea Turner - she of 'Yeah, I'll promote a chocolate bar on my wedding day' fame - has been rumbled by an eagle-eyed resident of Stoke-on-Trent.
For the former Blue Peter beauty, who is said to be fiercely proud of her Potteries roots, has been busy earning some dosh... promoting pottery from nowhere near Stoke-on-Trent. Allegedly.
According to a correspondent who wrote to my local paper, The Sentinel, it seems "our" Anth has been plugging ceramics made abroad for Matalan.
Which is a cracking way of showing loyalty to your home city in these credit-crunched times. Spode? Remember them? Well they've gone under after hundreds of years at the heart of life in Stoke.
Wedgwood, one of the region's other big names, are making more people redundant. And Royal Doulton... Royal who? Yep, they're just a distant memory in the town of Burslem, which they once so proudly called home.
So I imagine there might be plenty of former potbank workers who'd like to throw more than a pot in Anthea's direction, given her Matalan gig.
And who could blame them?

Whining Wenger's talking a load of balls

What a whinger that Arsene Wenger is.
I'll admit I know nowt about football, but I know that if a team like Stoke City wins fair and square, they win fair and square - even if it means defeating a 'superior' team like Arsenal in the process.
But it seems Arsenal manager Wenger knows better. He's moaning tonight that when his team lost 2-1 to Stoke at the Britannia Stadium on Saturday, it was far from fair and square.
City's Rory Delap and Ryan Shawcross deliberately injured his players Theo Walcott and Emmanuel Adebayor, he reckons.
What a load of old balls. It all smacks of sour grapes, if you ask me. What's his problem? Perhaps he doesn't like to see a side like Stoke climbing their way up the Premier League.
Well the people of Stoke-on-Trent certainly do. And the fans are going mad at Wenger's whining.
On the website of The Sentinel, my local paper, they're kicking off big time.
So balls to you Arsene. And according to some of Stoke City's fans, it's about time you changed your name to Ars.....

Walk this way...

I feel like the invisible man. First a dog walks into me. Then a man almost runs me down in his Fiat Panda.
It wasn't supposed to be like this. When I ditched my car three weeks ago, it was supposed to be the start of something special; an end to the daily stresses of commuting; a chance to swap the open road for a power walk to work.
But it's not been the life-changing, joyous experience I'd hoped for. Drivers are, by and large, an unpleasant bunch. They've got to go where they've got to go, and if you don't move, they'll take you with them (probably attached to their bumper).
Some of the roads in Stoke-on-Trent are far from a pedestrian paradise. Try crossing the A500 at 7.30am on a Monday and see who stops for you. I feel a strongly-worded letter of complaint to the council coming on... Maybe a petition... "We, the undersigned, call for a reduction in the 70mph speed limit on the A500 to allow for the installation of a Pelican crossing."
It could be much more effective than congestion charging. Bang in a Pelican every few hundreds metres and 1. drivers will get so fed up of stop-starting that they'll leave their cars at home; 2. Everybody will walk to work because they won't have to risk life and limb trying to cross the road just to get there.
No a walker's lot is not such a happy one. There's also the dog poo. And the lack of street lighting. And the bloody cyclists.
Jesus, I was a chain-smoking roadhog who needed surgically removing from my Fiat a month ago. Now I'm national spokesman of the Society For Pissed Off Pedestrians Who Have To Walk To Work Because They Can't Afford To Run A Car anymore.
Anyway, at least I can revel in somebody else's misery tonight. At the risk of burning in hell, I've just had a right laugh at a story about a Stoke City player who reckons he'll miss some big game at the weekend because he's tried to avoid tripping over his dog at home and hurt his ankle! Liam Lawrence is his name and it's all highly amusing. I wonder if it was the same bloody mutt that walked into me as I made my way home this evening...