Human nature presupposes that it's impossible to feel sympathy for anyone associated with Stoke City, from their lamentable manager to their knuckledragging fans, taking in a fair few cumbersome players in the process (although we'll let Leon Cort off). But, well, even the hardest of hearts can't help but offer beats of condolence if they put up with that shit every week.

 

Stoke City are a one tactic team. This has only just been noticed by Premier League ivory tower inhabitants who didn't notice that long balls and longer throws were responsible for 99% of their success in the Championship last season. And while Rory Delap's throws are effective and technically impressive (though Dave Challinor remains the man, and even the late Ian Hutchinson's reputation as a chucker shouldn't be remotely tarnished), they do little for the moniker of the 'beautiful game' - indeed,, Stoke's hefty reliance on one bloke being able to hurl howitzers boxwards from anywhere beyond the halfway line will do more than any other single tactical decision to render the game as ugly as Pulis himself.

 

Hull City were, for the good of footballkind, obliged to make sure that the most hateful club in our sport did not profit from any such monstrous play. This indeed was an out-and-out policy for the team that took to the fogbound field at the Britannia Stadium, with Boaz Myhill once deliberately giving away a corner from a pressured backpass as Stoke's centre forwards crowded him out. Concession of a throw was still possible, but percentages played their part and initial incredulity from the Tiger Nation was soon replaced by sage nodding of appreciation. Especially as Stoke, lacking the set-piece capability of Liam Lawrence, couldn't deliver a corner to save their lives.

 

Myhill, apparently beating off overtures from Inter Milan and Fenerbahce with a sharp stick, lined up behind an unchanged defence, but at last Phil Brown's teeth penetrated the bullet and he opted for a more fluid 4-4-2 system, with Nick Barmby - surprisingly, but not unwelcomely - flitting around the centre of the park while Daniel Cousin took a seat on the unpadded bench. Resplendent in the silver kit, it was otherwise as you were, with Bernard Mendy a gratifying returnee to the list of subs and Dean Windass again set to steal headlines from the bench, but hardly in the way he did at Portsmouth a week ago. For the record then - Myhill; McShane, Turner, Zayatte, Ricketts; Marney, Boateng, Ashbee, Barmby; Geovanni, King. Stoke had Cort back in defence, bless him. Wouldn't have him back now though, would you?

 

Stoke. Awful city, awful football club, awful people, awful. It must pain purists and football snobs (hi there) that names such as Stanley Matthews, Gordon Banks, Geoff Hurst and George Eastham have all played for this lot. Two of these icons have roads named after them in the perennially gridlocked nu-highway system around the stadium, and Banks is the club president. I expect Leicester aren't happy with that, unless he is president there too. Thank goodness England's finest custodian won the World Cup, as being associated with those two clubs is not, in modern terms, the proudest thing any player can brag about.

 

However, Stoke are aware that they have a dreadful reputation and, like us and our fair city, give no more than one hoot about it. Their football defies even industrial as a description, especially when Delap possesses such a freakish and handy weapon with those chuckers, some of which have bamboozled Arsenal and put twists in Everton's hardy knickers. The early stages of the game are as featureless as it's possible to be, with the flowing fog proving a nuisance but never, mercifully, endangering the game. Imagine getting all the way to this pit, only to be told you have to leave again and come back on some gruesome Tuesday night. No thank you.

 

City have a go at creating, but largely they were stifled by the hosts' endearing way of booting in the air anyone not wearing red and white who is within aromatic distance of the ball, and the referee - Mr Keith Stroud of Hampshire, for all you indignant letter-writers - did nothing to curtail this unsubtle ploy. He was by some distance our worst referee of the season but there's only so much official blaming you can do when, essentially, the reason the game went awry was because Stoke controlled it and the Tigers largely let them.

 

The inability to play a game and do it fair bit into City's rearguard, and Sam Ricketts and Kamil Zayatte were especially culpable. Ricketts gave the ball away worryingly often while Zayatte's positioning and kamikaze idea of booting the ball into the air rather than clear of peril did little to settle fluttering City hearts. Ricketts' first error on 15 minutes led to a quick counter attack on the right. Michael Turner gets a laudable foot to the initial ball in, but Salif Diao is in position to follow up. However, he is Salif Diao and so the ball ends up laughably wide. Funny, but a warning too.

 

City conceded their first throw-in for Delap's attention soon afterwards, but dealt with it exceptionally, which would become a happy motif of an otherwise depressing afternoon. Myhill then committed his act of calculated madness as he let Stoke waste a corner rather than risk Delap arrowing one of his best in - lest we forget that in last season's 1-1 draw at the Britannia, a Delap throw went in via one of Cort's eyebrows.

 

It took until the half hour for City to make something semi-recordable. Geovanni gets hacked down for what seems roughly the 1,594th time and finally Mr Stroud notices. Dean Marney, energetic but peripheral on his 100th appearance for the Tigers, swings over an arching free kick and Barmby gets a head to it which touches a defender and lands wide. The corner was not of note and we resumed our mumbling apathy and longing for our armchairs.

 

Ricketts then makes another hash, losing his head on his own byline as Stoke press but Ricardo Fuller, who ultimately will be more likely to keep Stoke up more than Delap will, stabs the opportunity beyond the post. A mild let-off for City, a severe admonishment for Ricketts. The home side are in the ascendancy - literally and figuratively - and time after time Delap is given his opportunity, now with handily-placed red towels available via the frozen ballboys to allow him extra grip. On one occasion, Cort messes up a half chance and a bunch of utter cretins among the Tiger Nation sing "City reject" at him. This is Leon Cort, you gobshites. Dean Windass, on the pretence of warming up, delays the taking of one further throw and gets an unplayful bollocking from Mr Stroud. Unperturbed (and presumably believing that he won't get booked when he's not actually playing), he does it again and gets a yellow card. Another quirky disciplinary event in the career of Deanworth Windass, esquire of this parish, to go with those three reds in one fell swoop he got while at Aberdeen.

 

We laughed, while also suspecting that Phil Brown wouldn't see the funny side as he had essentially lost a sub for the rest of the game. Could Windass be risked in a game such as this when he's already on a caution? Almost certainly not. The giggles and discussions and consultation of mental record books over such an odd incident is quickly replaced by capering and screaming of intensity and joy, as City take the lead out of nowhere.

 

A free kick, just inside the Stoke half. Marney steeples it goalwards, a pair of headers directs the ball to Marlon King who, despite barely getting a touch in the first half as a whole, shakes off any rustiness and aims a cracking right-footer beyond Tomas Sorensen and into the corner. A magical, unexpected, vital goal, and there's barely time for Stoke to restart before half time is called.

 

The concourses at the Britannia Stadium are buzzing now - another Premier League win looks on the cards, but to do it against a side of such joyless, spiritless vacuity would make the mood even brighter on a visibly-challenged day. The singing continues below stairs prior to a second half of hope that City can increase their lead and at the very least rule out a third consecutive Premier League draw, and a third consecutive 1-1 stalemate for us on this shabby ground. A ground which, incidentally, seems to be now devoid of its electronic scoreboard. Nicked? Or surreptitiously robbed of its plug by a grumbling Arsene Wenger. We may never care.

 

As you were, then. Delap whooshes in another humdinger which Cort meets firmly and familiarly but Myhill, alert and agile, gets down rapidly to make a very good save. Then we return to the lifeless, humdrum stuff until Zayatte incurs further wrath from the snarling entities that are Ian Ashbee and the Tiger Nation when he trips someone daftly on the right edge of the area, close to the byline. His overworked colleagues deal with the chipped delivery with aplomb. Zayatte's train wreck resumes two minutes later when he gets in Paul McShane's way (by the way, what a good game he had again - that lad's tackling is as strong as anyone's without actually relieving a player of his kneecaps) but Fuller slices the resultant ball away from what was essentially an open goal. Phew.

 

City briefly rally, with a lovely bit of work between Barmby and Geovanni around the edge of the Stoke box giving King possession with his back to goal. He glides it back smartly for Marney to shoot low to Sorensen's right, but there isn't quite the power to make the keeper do more than the basics to get to it.

 

Brown withdraws the impressive but not match-fit Barmby shortly afterwards, opting for the potent widework of Peter Halmosi, as untapped a talent as anyone in the City picture right now. But before the Hungarian can make his first headband adjustment, tragedy and injustice strikes at the other end.

 

Fuller goes through, Myhill and Turner meet him together and there is a cheating sound as Fuller's frame smacks the turf via a piece of diving that Greg Louganis would have expected straight sixes for. The referee, inevitably, points at the spot. Fuller himself takes the kick, low to Myhill's left. City's custodian gets so close to adding a third penalty save at this ground to the two he kept out three seasons ago under Peter Taylor. Fingertips, even a bit of palm, got to the ball but agonisingly not quite enough, and it was 1-1.

 

Ten minutes to go, and City up it a gear. Geovanni wriggles away from the byline to make room for a left-footer which flies too high. A late corner, a rare beast for the Tigers, offers further hope but Marney harks back to the opening dozen of his previous 99 appearances by hitting the ball annoyingly, frustratingly, despairingly too long. The closing stages were farcical, as Stoke really piled on the extremities with this classless long ball game of theirs, and Delap continued to towel dry the ball to hurl further throws at the six yard box. The humour seen in mimicry of this throwing fetish from the City fans is heightened further when Ricketts, brilliantly, asks for a towel from the ball boy to wipe it lengthily prior to his own long throw. Stoke fans in the vicinity, with a dense lack of appreciation of the lad's age, give the poor kid some stick. Then McShane does likewise at the other side, even choosing to dry his hair and wipe his armpits for good measure prior to putting the ball back into play.

 

Brown has used Cousin and Richard Garcia as late subs as City try a little harder to win it. Cousin gets one chance with a penetrating run down the inside right ginnel but as he cuts in and strikes, Cort gets in the way while King yells admonishment at his fellow centre forward from a handy position square. That proves to be the final action, if you can call it that, of the game, if you can call it that.

 

Three consecutive draws at least represents an unbeaten record and ultimately one bad refereeing decision as all that prevented City from returning to the winning rostrum. Sixth place in the Premier League seems to be glued to our badge, and that's a sequence nobody would wish to bemoan. Stoke are dreadful, and one 'accidental' stamp by a Mascherano-type enforcer on the elbows of Delap will ruin Pulis' entire coaching philosophy. It would be the sweetest occurrence in the world if Stoke visit the KC in May knowing that a defeat would send them, their festering city and their towels far away from the Premier League. We'd be happy to oblige, and football would thank us. (MR)