BARCLAYS PREMIER
Stoke City... 1
Norwich City... 0
Saturday 27th April 2013
@ The Britannia Stadium
Stoke-On-Trent
My last game of this particular season and it's finishing on a high with the Barclays Premiership and a visit to the Britannia stadium home of Stoke City who take on Norwich City this afternoon.
After all the travelling I have done in the past couple of months it's nice to have a relatively short trip only half hour on the train and a 10 minute bus ride to the ground. I tried to plan a rout on Google from the train station to the ground but apparently you have to walk along the river Trent pathway for a distance as there are a lot of roads not safe for pedestrians and Google's not the best tool to use for plotting a journey alongside a river. I wish I had of trusted my navigational instincts and walked as the journey back by bus was horrendous, I waited in a queue of over three bus loads of people and only just made it back to the station in time for my train.
The game is a relegation battle with both sides needing a win to help secure a place in the Premiership next season. Stoke went to Loftus road last weekend and came away with a 2-0 victory, Tony Pulis makes one change to the squad that won at QPR, Andy Wilkinson stepping in for Marc Wilson. Norwich's boss Chris Hughton makes two changes to the side that beat Reading 2-1 at Carrow Road last Saturday, Javier Garrido sit's it out on the bench and Michael Turner is left out of the squad while Steven Whittaker and Alexander Tettey make it onto the pitch.
The first half was a scrappy affair with both sides having chances to score but making nothing of it. Robert Snodgrass should have given Norwich the lead early on but hoofed his shot well over the bar when really he should have scored.
Stoke took the initiative and had a series of corners and free kicks but unfortunately for them they all came to nothing.
Steven N'zonzi was lucky to escape a red card later in the half when he brought down Kel Kamara which led to a sour patch in the game with several players from both sides receiving yellow cards for some bad challenges.
Three minutes after the half time break the Stoke fans had something to cheer about when Peter Crouch nodded on a long ball into the path of Charlie Adam who volleyed a shot from 12 yards into the back of the net.
Adam tried to return the favour a couple of minutes later squaring the ball from the right to Crouch who was free in the middle of the Norwich penalty area but the lanky striker missed kicked the ball and the chance went begging.
A few minutes later Crouch found Matthew Etherington on the left who slipped a pass to Walters inside the Norwich area, he knocked the ball back to N'zonzi who fired a shot from 25 yards which was parried by Mark Bunn and the ball dropped for Crouch in the six yard area but once again he muffed his lines and sent the ball flying over the bar in an unorthodox manner but this time his blushes were spared as the linesman had his flag up to rule him offside.
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| Monument to Sir Stanley Matthews |
The Britannia is a 28,383 all seated Stadium opened in 1997 at the cost of £15 million to rehouse Stoke after their old home the Victoria Ground didn't meet up with the standards set by the Taylor report in 1990. The Victoria had been home to Stoke for 119 years and it's grass was trod by one of England's greatest footballers Sir Stanley Matthews. Matthews died in February 2000 and his ashes were laid to rest under the centre circle of the Britannia Stadium.
The ground is made up of four stands although the North stand or Boothen as it's better known joins the Seddon stand and sweeps round half of the ground. The Seddon is where I watched the game from and is situated on the east side running along the touchline. Across the other side of the pitch is the West stand which is two tiered and has two sets of executive boxes, top and mid-level.
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| The Boothen stand |
The ground interior is very new and clean looking as you would expect from such a new build Stadium and as you take your seat and look around you can't help being impressed by the view.
From the exterior, it stands out from afar as it's perched on a hill with very little to obscure the view but not so easy to get to if you're not travelling by car, my advise to those travelling by train such as I did DON'T TAKE THE BUS, GET A TAXI OR WALK.
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