Stoke City F.C is one of the oldest football clubs in Britain. Stoke Ramblers as it was named in 1863 by former pupils of charterhouse school who worked for North Staffordshire Railway in Stoke-on-Trent but it remains unclear how many matches they actually played. We do know that the first documented match was five years down the line on 17 October 1868 at the clubs first ground, the Victoria Cricket Club against E.W.May XV club and it was a 15-a-side match that finished a 1-1 draw and the scorer on Stoke’s side was Henry Almond, the founder and captain. Stoke had their first 2-0 win over Newcastle-under-Lyme a close neighbour ofStoke-on-Trent in the same year.It was in 1878 that the Club merged with Stoke Victoria Athletic Club and Stoke Football Club was formed. They soon switched ground from Sweetings Field to the Athletic Club ground and soon after that became known as the Victoria Ground. Stoke entered the FA Cup in 1883 for the first time which had already been running for 12 years and had established itself as the best competition in Britain but unfortunately they were knocked out in the first round by Manchester. In 1888, and with the help of Stoke’s Manager Harry Locket the Football League was created with Stoke Been one of the twelve founding members. Harry Locket resigned as manager in 1890 and went to work for the Football League. Stoke-on-Trent was given city status in 1925 and in 1928 Stoke City Football Club was born. In March 1932 a 17 year old local boy from Hanley named Stanley Matthews made his first appearance against Bury and scored his first goal for Stoke against big rivals Port Vale which Stoke won 3-1. Stan “Wizard of Dribble” helped Stoke gain promotion to Division One and was the first City player to play
for England in 30 years.Stan is nothing less than a true legend for any Stoke City fan and one of the greats of the game of football. One of the highlights for Stoke was in 1972 beating Chelsea 2-1 at Wembley for the League Cup in front of a crowd of over 95000. After 119 years of matches at the Victoria Ground which is the longest time spent by any team in Britain at a ground Stoke moved to Britannia Stadium in 1997,a new 28000 all seater. Stoke’s last couple of decades have been a struggle just missing out on promotion to the Premiership a few times but on the 4 May 2008 they got promoted to the top flight of English Football with many saying they would be back down the following season but Stoke City in true spirit proved them all wrong and remained in the Premiership for another season. Hope they can do it again...
http://www.footyfrenzy.co.uk/history%20of%20stoke%20city%20fc.html
