In May 1995, a supporters group associated with the English football club Stoke City FC launched a campaign demanding wholesale changes to their beloved team. At the time, Stoke City played in Division One, the competition just below the top tier, three-year-old English Premier League (EPL). At the conclusion of every season the best clubs in the First Division get bumped up to the EPL to compete against heavyweights like Manchester United and Liverpool. But Stoke City was languishing, and hope that it would get promoted any time soon was fading. In an advertisement published in a local newspaper, the group asked, "Does the club's present level of investment in players provide for a real promotion challenge in the future?" Much of the ire was directed toward Stoke City chairman and majority shareholder Peter Coates. Owner of a catering business and a collection of betting shops, Coates had been in charge of Stoke for close to a decade. "Whenever a club is seen not to be doing well there always has to be someone to blame," he said a few days after the group's ad. The problem, Coates explained, was a lack of resources. The money being poured into clubs like Blackburn, winners of the English Premier League title, is "the exception to the rule. Generally this does not happen and we would love such a sugar daddy at Stoke. But I don't think we are going to get one." He was right. No man was going to save Stoke City. But a woman would.
On January 10, 1998, Stoke City suffered its worst home defeat in history, a 7–0 drubbing by Birmingham City. No longer content with strongly worded missives, angry supporters stormed the field: "They came through the door like a herd of buffaloes," a former Stoke City player told a reporter. A few days later, Coates resigned as chairman. A few months later, Stoke City was relegated to the Second Division. Almost two years later, Stoke City was sold to a consortium of investors from Iceland.
