Many and varied are the pieces of memorabilia, art and paraphernalia that the football club has gathered about itself over the years. Over the next season or three, we are going to select some of these, in no particular order nor importance, to help tell a tale of Throstles down the years. It’s not a definitive history, might at times be apocryphal and at others completely fabricated, but these odd shafts of light will give you a sense of who we are and where we came from. Confused? You will be…
Episode Nine
COMMEMORATIVE PLATE – FIRST SEASON AT THE BRITANNIA STADIUM - SEPTEMBER 1997
As the Victoria Ground reached the end of its useful life, Stoke moved to a new stadium for the 1997/98 season. Albion had been the final visitors to the Vic on 4th May 1997 and we were the second team to play at the new venue on 3rd September 1997, all of which was appropriate enough given that we had been the first visitors to Stoke in the Football League’s inaugural season too, back in 1888.
In keeping with all the teams that visited that year, we were presented with a commemorative plate to mark the occasion, probably the most lasting memory of an otherwise less than enthralling day that ended 0-0.
By season’s end, Stoke were relegated, ironically mimicking our fate in our first season at The Hawthorns almost a century before. Meddle with traditional venues at your peril!