14/05/2025
Hudson 84 ..
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Going back to that period of 1983/84 when I returned this is what Wiki had to say about it: The 1983/84 season was Stoke City's 77th season in the Football League and the 51st in the First Division.
Manager Ritchie Barker decided to change his tactics prior to the start of the season which was seen a strange decision as Stoke played well in the previous season playing good football. He change to the long ball style of play and whilst it worked with other sides in the Division it didn't with Stoke and results were poor. Barker was sacked and his assistant Bill Aprey took over and he brought back club legend Alan Hudson which sparked a revival with a 4–0 win over Wolverhampton Wanderers on the final day of the season seeing Stoke stay up by two points. As I wrote earlier Wiki did not tell the entire and true story, this was more like it: 1984 28 Jan: Arsenal H 1-0 Paul MaGuire 75 minute penalty (12,840) 4 Feb: WHU A 0-3 11 Feb: Ipswich Town H 1-0 Ian Painter 87 (10,315) 18 Feb: Coventry City A 3-2 Hampton 41, Chamberlain 67, O'Callaghan 81 25 Feb: Notts County H 1-0 Chamberlain 8 (11,725) 3 March: Tottenham A 0-1 10 March: Aston Villa H 1-0 Painter 73 17 March: Birmingham H 2-1 Dyson 21 Bould 56 24 March: WBA A 0-3 31 March: Sunderland H 2-1 Painter 22, Dyson 28 (11,047) 7 April: Arsenal A 1-3 Chamberlain 70 14 April: Liverpool H 2-0 Painter 21 Russell 50 (24,372) 21 April: Norwich City A 2-2 Mllroy 5, Chamberlain 70 23 April: QPR H 1-2 Russell 2 (13,735) 28 April: Notts Forest A 0-0 5 May: Southampton H 1-1 Maguire 80 (12,171) 7 May: Luton Town A 1-0 Painter 5 12 May: Wolves H 4-0 Maguire 17, 41, 49, 89
The first four matches against difficult opponents were the most important for me, and following after my signing a much wanted three year contract were something I can only report as incredible, especially against the might of Liverpool who were quite a force led by the great Graeme Souness. Although my return sparked a remarkable revival I have always maintained that the match that was the most significant was that 1-0 home win against Ipswich Town. This was the least most impressive performance and only the heroics of goalkeeper Peter Fox saved the day and this kept us in the match until Ian Painter, a good player with a bad injury, scored a late goal by brilliantly turning England centre-half Terry Butcher to slide home the winner in the 87th minute. But it was Fox all the way who was as brave as a lion as he was confronted three Ipswich forwards on a one-on-one situation in amazing fashion. I stood there fearing the worst as blue shirts ran free on our goal only to be thwarted by Fox. Had it been my first time at Stoke City and Peter Shilton making such saves the headlines would have been rather different. What made this result more remarkable was that we were taken away to Spain for a few days of 'bonding' sunshine and what I cam only call as 'one big party'. Our overall performance was shown by such a trip as we were second best all over the field except where Fox was concerned. Moving on to the 14th April at the Old Vic it was something of a different story as Sammy Mcllroy and yours truly wrestled the match from Souness and our defensive unit led by big Brendan 'O'Callaghan kept Ian Rush at bay which led to us repeating another great result over the Merseysiders, which brought back a few memories of my Easter Monday 1975 performance against Shankly's red shirted European champions. My individual performance was nowhere near as impressive but seeing I was on my last legs alongside Sammy it was quite memorable and a result that gave us hope for that final push for survival, a survival that had many headlines such as 'Mission Impossible Completed' and 'Mission Accomplished' it was that monumental a time and I put that down to the building of a team spirit that no coach or manager can give you. Our off the field activities were all down to this and times in the bar of the Richmond Leisure Centre along with the likes of Bryan Shenton, Geoff Chell and Bobby Kelly and other social members were so very important. It makes a complete mockery of today's continual mention of 'too much football' and 'burned out' causing players to rather use them as excuses. The three match Easter programme where matches on Friday, Saturday and Monday with travelling in between really was not only demanding but downright daunting, especially if you take in the knocks and bruises you incurred along the way. It reminded me of my time in Seattle on the road for four matches in ten days where after one match we sat in a Fort Lauderdale hotel bar with the players looking like scene from a war movie with ice buckets scattered all over the room. On top of ice buckets there were bandages holding ice packs on knees and hamstrings which again made a mockery of the modern game. I recall coming back to England and hearing Rudd Gullit say “We need a break at Christmas” which made me chuckle thinking of those days of travelling from Seattle to New York onto Washington and then Tampa Bay and Fort Lauderdale. That would be daunting enough with out having to play away matches along the way, but our Seattle record breaking team were not only unbeaten on those trips but would have beaten the likes of our old Chelsea and Southampton side Bill Shankly called “The Ale House Team” such were they such a force at the bar. On the 5th May against Southampton, at home once again, I was just about to hit the ball past Shilton and was hacked down from behind and went over on my shoulder, which saw me miss the following match at Luton, one the chaps performed with great determination and once again it was young Painter who got the all-important goal. The club doctor said my shoulder, could not be operated on but Waddington once again came to my rescue and took me to Solihull to see a Doctor Polyzides who said immediately that, “I can operate one of five ways”, to which I left it to him and he operated just in time for our trip to celebrate survival in Tampa Bay, Florida. Within three days of arriving in one of my favourite spots in the world Peter Fox had my sling on his arm in the Proud Lion Bar telling the locals he did it in the previous nights match, great stuff Foxy!
