KEITH Mackenzie-Ingle’s Stoke T-shirt says “Keeping The Faith” – an instruction easier said than done when you are a City fan who have spent much of the past three decades being ridiculed or patronised by Arsenal and Tottenham supporters.

The North Londoner has been a Stoke fan for 42 of his 48 years. Gordon Banks is to blame, because he was Keith’s favourite player.

More surprising even than even all this is his revelation that a fellow member of the defiant band of southern Stokies was recently accused of being a glory hunter. The slanderer – a bloke in the pub – was clearly an imbecile, but all the same....

“Can you believe it?” Keith asked me, over a pre-match pint. “I wish they’d have called me that. I’d have told tell them I’d been hunting glory for 42 years, and only just found some.”

Keith admits his first game was the 1972 League Cup final. However, his second game gave him a better idea that following City would offer more suffering than silverware.

“It was a cup game against Spurs,” he said. “It had been held over because the Butler Street Stand roof had blown off. My abiding memory is of the police horses charging through the graveyard in Stoke after the game. I was so scared I jumped on the first train, and ended up on the football special taking the Tottenham fans back. I was the only Stoke fan on the train, so spent the journey back in the toilet.”

The thought of Stoke having to win, or even draw, at Arsenal on the last day would have been enough to keep several thousand more Stokies confined to the kazi. However, despite the expectations of the pundits and, let’s face it, plenty of Stoke fans, Tony Pulis led the team to safety weeks ago. That meant the final day at the Emirates was a fancy dress special.

Would Dick Turpin have been at Villa Park? Batman at the KC Stadium? Not on your nelly. While “survival Sunday” was an unbearable endurance for some, Stoke fans took the opportunity to party like it was, well, 1972. The carnival atmosphere continued inside the ground, where the home fans had been issued with plastic inflatable clappers.
Stoke tried the same last week in the final home game against Wigan, although it has to be said they weren’t taken up as enthusiastically at the Brit.

Such artificial aids were used by the youngsters, but the older Stoke fans treated them with the same disdain with which Viv Richards regarded a batting helmet.

The Arsenal fans certainly had plenty to bang their clappers about as their side took Stoke to the cleaners in an opening 45 minutes which reminded us all, lest we’d forgotten, just how tough the Premier League is.

The first-half collapse was reminiscent of the three goals Stoke conceded at Bolton in their first 45 minutes of Premier League football.

The atmosphere, however, was completely different, as Stoke supporters, who had feared the worst after that Reebok Stadium experience, simply relaxed and enjoyed the end of a remarkable campaign.

The game also ranks alongside the Tottenham defeat as among City’s poorest away from home. That’s hardly ideal for North London Stokie Keith.

The result has certainly not ruined North London Stokie Keith’s season.

He said: “To be able to come here knowing we were already safe has been fantastic.

“Tony Pulis has done brilliantly after a brave decision by Peter Coates to bring him back. All I wanted was survival, so to have finished in mid-table is amazing.

“Mind you, I don’t think I’m going to have to worry about being called a glory hunter... at least not for a few years yet.”

Other Stoke City stories online today:
Pulis plans squad shake-up
City’s alternative awards
Loss takes a bit of gloss off season, says Lawrence
No excuses for defeat, says Shawcross
Dickinson hungry to net starting spot
Faith pays off for London-based Potters fan
Weary Potters out-gunned
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