Stoke City Without the Boring Bits

Stoke City: A History Without the Boring Bits is a journey through more than 150 years of one of English football's most fascinating clubs. As the title suggests, this is not a conventional club history of league tables and match reports. Instead, it tells the story of Stoke City through the remarkable events, key personalities and extraordinary moments that have helped shape the club over the last 150 years. Discover how Stoke played a role in creating the modern laws of football, why a rat stole a player's false teeth, how a hypnotist helped end a goalscoring drought, and what happened when a pre-match meal left players hallucinating. From founder members of the Football League to European adventures, title challenges, famous victories and the terrible moments which still sting today, every chapter reveals another piece of Stoke City's unique identity. Stoke City: A History Without the Boring Bits combines Peter Smith's years of reporting with his encyclopaedic knowledge of one of English football's most distinctive clubs, as he tells the stories that make Stoke City unlike any other club.