AINLEY AIMING TO MARK HIS BIG DAY WITH TIMELY STRIKE
CALLUM Ainley is determined to mark his 100th league appearance for Crewe Alex by getting on the goal trail this weekend. The academy graduate is poised to reach the landmark at Stevenage on Saturday (3pm), taking his total to 115 outings in all competitions at the age of just 20. But while it is a fine achievement, the attacking midfielder is frustrated that he has not opened his goal-scoring account this season. Ainley says he is keen to break that duck. “I’m quite proud to get to 100 league games, but in those games I wish I’d scored and created a lot more goals,” he said. “Defensively we have been good, but there is a lot of work to do. “We need to add goals, especially myself and the forwards, who haven’t been getting the service they deserve. “It’s frustrating, especially not getting on the scoresheet just yet. “For the fans there is a lot of frustration there because we haven’t been scoring and creating enough. “Everyone is desperate to do well, but you can get a bit caught up with yourself in what you’re trying. “Sometimes it is a bit heavy on me, I get caught up in [thinking] what I’m going to do in the next game and it just repeats itself. “Hopefully I’ll take the weight off my shoulders.” Talented Ainley, from Middlewich, has long been earmarked as a player with the potential to go on to a higher level, and made his debut in 2015. But while he is now a regular starter and looks faster and stronger than before, he has only managed eight goals for the club. Meanwhile, Shaun Miller has had an injection in his knee in a bid to get him back to full match fitness. The striker has only started two league games this term due to a niggling problem with the joint, which has not altogether ruled him out of action, but has hindered his play. It was decided the 31-year-old, who signed a permanent deal in the summer after last term’s successful loan spell, needed a specific drug to help, but it took nearly a fortnight to get hold of the medicine. Now Miller has been given the shot and is in light training. He could be in contention to take his place in the squad this weekend. OF ALL the Stoke City memorabilia from the last 150 years, one missing item would be more guaranteed than most to raise the ire of thousands of supporters.
It is a statuette of a horse’s backside.
In the century and a half since Stoke played their first recorded game, there have been many moments of joy and misery – but this one piece represents a story that might top the lot for anger and frustration.
It was the award presented to linesman Bob Matthewson by Stoke supporters’ club in the aftermath of the 1972 FA Cup semi-final replay against Arsenal at Goodison Park.
Injury-ravaged Stoke were playing their 60th game of a marathon season and, despite an heroic battle, ended on their knees after an epic tie swung against them thanks to the officials and a man in a white coat.
Stoke’s grievances started in the fifth minute when Denis Smith’s header was adjudged to have been cleared from under the crossbar by Bob Mcnab’s scissor kick. Stoke players claimed it had crossed the line – and a photograph seeming to back up that claim was cut out from a newspaper and stuck on the changing room wall at the Victoria Ground the following week.
Jimmy Greenhoff soon put his side ahead anyway from the spot, but Arsenal were handed a controversial penalty of their own. Referee Keith Walker claimed Peter Dobing had “deliberately hit George Armstrong in the small of the back”. Dobing and his team-mates were dumbstruck but Charlie George took the chance to level.
Then Matthewson, a top referee in his day job who had been flag-happy all night as assistant, waved George through in a seemingly clear offside position to cross for John Radford to poke home the winner.
The next time Matthewson came to Stoke he was taken to task about why he hadn’t stopped play.
Terry Conroy recalled: “The lads asked him why he didn’t flag. We were wearing all white at the time and he mistook a guy in white selling ice-cream or programmes for a defender on the far side. It beggars belief.”
So yes, Stoke were out of the cup and Matthewson was awarded the ‘horse’s backside’ from fans as a symbol of what they made of