Stoke City: Clarke blasts police for 'big club' precedent
Police in the north west pushed for Stoke's game at Manchester City to be moved from today to tomorrow after receiving intelligence of possible trouble in the centre of Manchester.
Police feared that Stoke people – not necessarily Stoke fans – would travel from the Potteries on Saturday lunchtime to clash with Manchester United fans watching their team play on pub TVs in today's lunchtime kick-off at Everton.
The knock-on effect of this weekend's switch of kick-off has been felt not only with Stoke's game at City being shifted to Sunday afternoon, but their subsequent home match with Sunderland next week being moved from Tuesday to Wednesday evening – with the consequent loss of live TV coverage on Sky.
Malcolm Clarke, chairman of the Football Supporters' Federation and a life-long Stoke fan, left, is furious that two fixtures and three clubs have been inconvenienced in order to accommodate live coverage of Manchester United.
"More than 40,000 people attending the Manchester City v Stoke City fixture have been affected through no fault of their own and that cannot be right," he said.
"If police were so worried about clashes with United fans watching their game on television, then why not move their game and leave other fixtures untouched?
"Once again, we see the so-called smaller clubs having to fall into line for the so-called bigger clubs."
There was a spin-off benefit, however, for those many Stoke fans wanting to see the end to their much-derided Away Cards.
For Stoke's hierarchy appear to have regarded Greater Manchester Police's attitude as the final straw and used the change in the Manchester City date – together with the change of kick-off at Wigan in a fortnight – as reason enough to suspend the cards ahead of a probable abolition at the end of the season.
The cards were introduced in February 2003 to avoid the very kick-off changes now being implemented and so now, therefore, the club sees no logical argument in maintaining them for a set of supporters with a much-improved reputation anyway.
"I fully welcome the suspension of the cards," added Clarke, "and would add that the club's decision is also fully supported nationwide by the Football Supporters' Federation.
"I think the club in general, and chief executive Tony Scholes in particular, should also be praised for the leadership they have shown in this matter."
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