Blackburn's Jack Walker" According to Paul Wilson of The Guardian.
www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2011/sep/01/stoke-city-transfer-window-coatesPeter Coates fast becoming a Stoke version of Blackburn's Jack Walker
The Potteries side have made great strides in a short time and are determined not just to live the dream Leeds United-style
The dust has settled on the last day of the transfer window and only one question really remains. What on earth is going on at Stoke City? After a mere three seasons in the Premier League the erstwhile Potteries upstarts are not only established as mid-table finishers and voyagers in Europe, Tony Pulis was able to comfortably outspend the managers of clubs with much longer top-flight records such as Everton, Bolton and Blackburn.
While that might not be saying much these days, given the tight financial constraints at some of the North-west's lesser Premier League lights, in signing an apparently unwilling Peter Crouch for £10m Stoke also managed to head off interest from Sunderland and Aston Villa. Considered together with the captures of Wilson Palacios and Cameron Jerome to push the summer's spending up to over £20m, Stoke's confidence and ambition stand out in the largely depressed band of mid-table clubs who are not trying to gain Champions League status and are not expected to be dragged into relegation issues.
So why are they bucking the general trend? Are they chasing a dream in the time-dishonoured Leeds United style, or is Peter Coates, the club chairman, now to be regarded as a sugar-daddy in the Jack Walker tradition, if not quite the full Roman Abramovich?
Coates, reticent on financial details but known to be injecting some of his own money into the club, fits the Walker template almost exactly. A son of Stoke and boyhood supporter of the club, he took over the Potters for the second time in 2006 with a view to doing something for the area and the community as well as the ailing team.
After originallymaking his fortune in catering, Coates is financing his present interest in Stoke through the success of the Bet365 company he founded, but though considerably wealthy he would be unlikely to set his sights so high as a league title. That was always Walker's aim at Blackburn, though the landscape has changed considerably since 1995, and to tilt for the very top now would be to invite the owners of Chelsea and Manchester City, to name but two, to a pocket-emptying contest.
Like his chairman, the Stoke chief executive Tony Scholes is keen to highlight the club's ambition, while being careful not to mention an actual target. "These latest fantastic deals are a statement of this football club's intent," he said after the deadline-day deals had been completed. "We have made incredible strides over the past five years and to attract players of this calibre shows our ambition."
There is no doubting that Stoke have made great strides in a short time. When Coates came back to the club he originally thought no higher than getting into the Premier League for the first time, but now Pulis's robust yet relaxed management style has delivered finishes of 12th, 11th and 13th in three seasons. With European football and an FA Cup final as an unexpected bonus, it appears the Potters are capable of pushing on into the top 10.
"The future is bright for Stoke," Crouch said after signing a four-year deal and meeting around 300 supporters who had turned up at the Britannia Stadium to see which players would do likewise before the deadline had passed. "I've had the hard sell from Woody [Jonathan Woodgate] all summer, telling me how much I'd like it here, and the manager has shown a hell of a lot of faith and belief in me. Tony Pulis worked extremely hard to get me here and hopefully I will be able to repay him."
Crouch's initial reservations will soon evaporate if he gets a regular game at Stoke, and an £18m strike partnership with Kenwyne Jones will give Matthew Etherington and Jermaine Pennant plenty to aim for. What Stoke themselves are aiming for is less clear, though they probably deserve more credit than rival supporters have been willing to grant them this summer.
Disgruntled fans at clubs less busy in the transfer market – from potless Everton to dithering Arsenal – have become fond of arguing that "even Stoke" are bringing in good players, using it as a stick to beat their own directors' efforts. It seems that while Coates is around, Stoke always will be interested in bringing in players and trying to improve. The chairman's first act in 2006 was to clear Stoke's debt, and unlike, say, Bill Kenwright, he has some money to bring to the table and help the club to act swiftly and decisively.
Like Chelsea, Stoke say the eventual idea is to be self-financing, but with the relatively modest sums they are paying out it is easier to believe it of the Potters. Crouch is a new record signing at £10m, beating the amount spent on Jones by £2m. "The club was in a mess and I thought I was in a position to help," Coates has said. "My family all thought I was daft to get involved again, but I thought it would be important for the area if the football club were doing well. Stoke has lost its pot banks and mining industry, and I thought Premier League football would give the place a lift. Thankfully, that is the way it has worked out."
