Have you got any grandchildren?

If not, then you’ll miss out on so much. The joys of watching them maintain your family names and traditions long after you’ve gone. The delight on their faces when they open their Christmas presents. And the swell of pride you’ll feel when you tell them you saw City become A Bonafide Championship Club.

Oh, for more days like this. Peter Taylor’s men were on the sort of cracking form that even the most dominant points of the two preceding promotion campaigns rarely hit. Every man jack of the Tigers side played a pivotal role in one of the most stunningly one-sided and ecstatic awaydays of recent memory.

And it was in the Championship.

It would be churlish to suggest that part of the reason City were so awesome and inspirational was because their opponents were quite awful. True, but City have won games from the garbage bin this season and lost to teams who wouldn’t look out of place in a skip at other points. You pays your money, you takes your choice.

A typically large and passionate Tiger travelling contingent parked their vehicles in the Harvester car park across the road from the easy-to-spot but atmospherically-infertile Britannia Stadium, had a few pre-match ales, wondered how the teenage girl taking £4.50 per car was getting away with it when the car park was actually full, before eventually making the short, brisk stroll to the away end. Nineteen quid, pay at the door, good pies, worth every penny.

Now, the grumbles about Peter Taylor of late have maintained their usual theme of odd selections. Mark Lynch out of position, Mark Lynch in position but still poor, John Welsh seemingly invisible, Damien Delaney in danger of becoming too versatile for his own good, Stuart Elliott being dropped too easily. We wanted the team which gave Palace a game last week but with Welsh and Elliott back, Lynch gone and Delaney at left back, please.

And we got it. Fair play. The optimism raised considerably when the beep-beep of many mobiles showcased the correct and much-craved XI in the half-hour before kick off. Mr Taylor was absolutely spot on. Welsh got an especially good cheer when the announcer got to his name in the introductions. Something was bubbling, this already felt good, even though City had yet to kick a competitive ball. Bo Myhill kept custody of the nets behind Ryan France, Leon Cort, Sam Collins and Delaney; Jason Price was wide on the right and Stuart Elliott returned to the left, with Welsh joining Keith Andrews in the middle; Jon Parkin continued to partner Craig Fagan up front.

Stoke, shattered and not a little embarrassed after failing to beat Tamworth in 210 minutes of open football, had some useful individuals in their ranks – Luke Chadwick, Lewis Buxton, Paul Gallagher – but for all the good they did, they could have picked their blueish hippo mascot Pottermus (great name) to lead the frontline and there might have been more mobility and effort.

City looked comfy from the outset and were in a quick ascendancy via the training ground on seven minutes when awarded a free kick on the edge of the area. A clever decoy run from Delaney went unnoticed by a blinkered Stoke defence, and the excellent Andrews released him from the free kick while shaping to aim the ball in the opposite direction. The Irishman had several hours to weight up his target and deliver a tasty ball on to Cort’s head, and after Stoke keeper Steve Simonsen somehow beat it out, hapless defender Darel Russell got in the way of the clearance, under pressure from Elliott and others. Lucky? Maybe, but City’s fans were already celebrating as Cort rose for the header. It was a complete certainty. What a start.

And even with just seven minutes gone, it was clearly deserved. City looked compact, relaxed, inspired and hungry. Welsh – by some distance the finest midfielder in the club – was back, and how, tackling tenaciously and delivering pristine passes while Andrews swept and instructed calmly behind him. The midfield was in City’s mitts from the very start and we weren’t letting go. Individually and collectively we were in the mood, and the City fans responded in kind with loud, long and typically boisterous vocal encouragement.

Price cut in from the flank to hit a spicy snapshot which Simonsen got a paw to while Myhill, in the middle of our goal, took a break from spitting on his gloves to clutch a fizzing Mamady Sidibe drive. Our wonderful goalkeeper had little to do as City kept the ball and kept the faith for the rest of the first half. The whistle went and as the City fans emptied the kiosks of beer and chicken balties (literally – we’re always blessed with an appetite at half time when we’re winning; the shutters came down on the bars and stands before the second half began, shorn of supplies) there was a lot of smiling. Now, where would the second half take us?

Oooh, bloody everywhere. Stoke were briefly bright, having clearly had a bollocking from Johan Boskamp, their outstandingly named manager who looks like Gordon Ramsay after a few extra puddings, and City kept their backs to the wall for the opening five minutes – if that. Collins, who otherwise played an assured and clever defensive game which belied his recent lukewarmth alongside Cort, gave Gallagher a tug on the shirt and the on-loan striker naturally did the dying swan act so beloved of all Premiership strikers which prompted Andy D’Urso to point to the white circle. All the good work was about to be undone, then, as for all Myhill’s excellence, Gallagher himself was the proven spotkicker ready to level matters up.

Er, no. The kick was low, true and headed for the corner – if we’re honest, Gallagher didn’t get any aspect of it wrong – but Myhill leapt to his right with gunshot-avoiding reflexes and got enough fingers to the ball to swat it over the bar.

And we went completely mental. Well, not quite. We went quite mad. The completely mental moment came two-fold at opposite ends of the ground two minutes later.

First Stoke fans seemed to start beating each other up – if a City infiltrator or five had got in there, then let’s condemn them swiftly, although we’ve heard nothing to suggest as such – and there was a lovely piece of ironic cheering from one side of the City end to the other when all the Staffordshire constabulary who had been despatched on double time to watch a thousand unproblematic City fans had to do that funny policeman’s jog round the pitch to help the stewards sort out the in-scrapping. They needn’t have bothered, because we had our own peacemaker in Jon Parkin.

Oh man, what a boon this troll-like bustler has so far been to our attack. The nickname of ‘The Beast’ now seems to be sticking and it’s extremely apt. But there was nothing beastly about his goal which swung the game back in the Tigers’ favour and prompted scenes of wild jubilation akin to those at Coventry.

Nobody could have expected Parkin, this tall, sinewy breezeblock of a man, to take a clever through ball from the improved France on his chest, show a beautifully fragile touch to bring it to instep, then do a backheel turn on the defender which made him look an absolute idiot before stroking a left footer past the exposed Simonsen.

Parkin slid triumphantly on his knees in front of an utterly berserk City faithful and the fighting at the other end stopped completely as the fisticuffers wondered what the fuss was about. Just like when Welsh destroyed a whole defence to put us two up at Coventry, this was a moment when everything we had patiently endured over the years was put into perspective and we had a reward to show for it. Fine players, great goals, top awaydays, Championship football. For Parkin and his intriguing yak-like build and frame, this was another birthday coming in quick succession. The partial derision which greeted his initial purchase clearly would have spurred him on, if he’d heard about it, but clearly he’s a character to admire as well as a footballer to appreciate. Maybe that was as much a factor in his arrival – managers ask all sorts of questions about the players as men before making their final decision.

So then, two up, with a nice little penalty save to complement it. Feed The Beast And He Will Score became a new chant. The Win Away version of The Lion Sleeps Tonight returned for the first time in a bit too. Life beckoned us forward, the world was our oyster etc etc – all the usual guff your brain allows you to ponder when your team is on top and on fire. However, where there is City there is always peril – it’s in the contract – so when Stoke won another penalty, this time without much cause for argument as Collins’ studs connected implausibly with Peter Sweeney’s nipples, we could believe there were more twists ahead. After all, keepers don’t save two penalties in one game do they?

Oh, they do.

They bloody do.

Myhill for England!

Gallagher, like a girl, declined the opportunity to be thwarted by the mighty Bo again, so the heart-throb Luke Chadwick – as generally anonymous in 90 minutes as he was on the fringes at Manchester United – decided to have a go instead. Using the dangerous logic that the goalkeeper dived last time so will do this time too, Chadwick feebly tried to plop it through the middle, and our marvellous mind-reader made him look a complete dolt by choosing not to budge and gently catching the ball. Candy from a baby. And more riotous cheers from our end, this time mixed with much eye-rubbing and helpless laughter.

Every subsequent foul on a Stoke player was greeted with a cry of “penalty!” from our end. It’s been rare when we can be sarky and ironic at away games this season, so the opportunity was too good to miss each time. Mr Taylor, sensing rightly that luck might not last forever, sought some new legs for the team and Price was given a huge ovation as he made way for Darryl Duffy, with the tireless Fagan shifting across to the touchline.

Though Duffy’s arrival was more expensive and more welcomed than that of Parkin, the other newbie was clearly dominating the early plaudits, so our new tartan targetman used a comfortable scoreline to shape himself into a Championship footballer. He tried one from the corner of the box that deflected into the box for Elliott, who stabbed it wide, and then, buoyed by the obvious angst in a Stoke defence bruised by Parkin’s brawn, gleefully accepted a gorgeous pass from Fagan to run undaunted and unchallenged at Simonsen, who got half a hand to the low shot but could do no more to stop the ball rolling home.

Three nil up.

Away from home.

In the Championship too. And our keeper’s saved two penalties. Glad you went, eh?

Duffy acknowledged the City crowd, which had now gone totally hatstand with the rapture, but was commendably cool in his celebration otherwise. This is a good thing. The psychologist in me states that this is a calculating and ruthless centre forward who regards goalscoring as his job and that off-days are out of the question. He’s due to make his full debut soon, though Mr Taylor will need to show some considerable bravery to drop Fagan (brilliant) or Parkin (immortally brilliant) in favour of the Scotsman. He’d also be brave to drop Parkin because the beefy striker looks like the type who might pick up his manager and attach him to a clothes peg in the dressing room until the team changes are constructively “reconsidered”.

And the job was done. City kept the ball, took the cheers with each pass and tried gamely to respond to the greedy (what the hell, we’re not used to this) chant of “we want four” which echoed round the stand. The Stoke contingent, already sparse before the game, was now halfway home. They’d had enough and you couldn’t blame them.

Fagan took another deserved ovation as Mr Taylor gave Scott Wiseman an unusual seven minutes as a right winger (still, little point in switching him and France when you’re three up) and then even Kevin Ellison, bless him, took a cheer on to the pitch and looked keen and worthy when he tagged with the knackered Elliott, who was back on form, especially in the first half.

We should say it was vintage City, but in an up-and-down Tigerworld we live in, it’s not apparent what vintage City is. But this was special. It’s not going to envelop the season, as we’re still in the bottom section and need to gain more away points and build our KC fortress again. And the opposition were shocking, of course. But City played with poise and attitude and deserved the joy of scoring three, keeping a clean sheet and making higher-schooled players look fools with their penalties. The fans were vocal and humourous and behaved and starry-eyed. You know, when we really get it right, it never feels righter. (MR)