The 1963–64 season was

Stoke City Stoke City Football Club is a professional football club based in Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England, which competes in the . Founded as Stoke Ramblers in 1863, it changed its name to Stoke in 1878 and then to Stoke City in 1925 after Stoke ...

's 57th season in

the Football League The English Football League (EFL) is a league of professional football clubs from England and Wales. Founded in 1888 as the Football League, the league is the oldest such competition in the world. It was the top-level football league in Engla ...

and the 33rd in the First Division. With the club now on a high after gaining promotion back to England's top tier,

Tony Waddington Anthony Waddington (9 November 1924 – 21 January 1994) was an English football manager at both Crewe Alexandra and Stoke City. Waddington had a seven-year playing career with Crewe Alexandra before becoming a coach at Stoke City. He progress ...

wasted no time in bringing in new signings to make sure relegation was avoided. He broke the transfer record and despite some concern during the season Stoke stayed up comfortably in 17th position. Stoke enjoyed success in the

League Cup In several sports, most prominently association football, a league cup or secondary cup generally signifies a cup competition for which entry is restricted only to teams in a particular league. The first national association football tournament t ...

reaching the

final Final, Finals or The Final may refer to: *Final (competition), the last or championship round of a sporting competition, match, game, or other contest which decides a winner for an event ** Another term for playoffs, describing a sequence of cont ...

against

Leicester City Leicester ( ) is a city, unitary authority and the county town of Leicestershire in the East Midlands of England. It is the largest settlement in the East Midlands. The city lies on the River Soar and close to the eastern end of the National ...

before losing 4–3 over two legs.

Season review

League

With the euphoria of winning promotion over, Waddington knew that his side had to be strengthened to have any hope of surviving in the First Division. The first big name signing he made was that of

Peter Dobing Peter Dobing (born 1 December 1938) is an English former footballer who played in the Football League for Blackburn Rovers, Manchester City and Stoke City. Career Dobing was born in Manchester and came from a sporting family, his father play ...

for a club record fee of £37,500 from

Manchester City Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The tw ...

and £6,000 for Bobby Irvine a young goalkeeper from Linfield. Also signed by Stoke this season was John Ritchie a centre forward signed from non-league

Kettering Town Kettering Town Football Club is a football club based in Burton Latimer, Northamptonshire, England. They are currently members of and play at Latimer Park in Burton Latimer. Kettering were the first club to wear sponsorship on their shirts in ...

for a small fee of £2,500. Ritchie scored 30 goals in his first season and went on to become Stoke's best ever goalscorer. Stoke made a dream start to the 1963–64 season beating

Tottenham Hotspur Tottenham Hotspur Football Club, commonly referred to as Tottenham () or Spurs, is a professional association football, football club based in Tottenham, London, England. It competes in the Premier League, the top flight of English footba ...

2–1 at home on the opening match of the season,

Jimmy McIlroy James McIlroy (25 October 1931 – 20 August 2018) was a Northern Ireland international footballer, who played for Glentoran, Burnley, Stoke City and Oldham Athletic. He was regarded as one of Burnley's greatest players, having played 497 matc ...

scoring both goals, and then accounting for

Aston Villa Aston Villa Football Club is a professional football club based in Aston, Birmingham, England. The club competes in the , the top tier of the English football league system. Founded in 1874, they have played at their home ground, Villa Park ...

3–1 two days later. There followed though, a run of 10 matches without a win and Stoke found themselves at the wrong end of the table. Waddington was not happy with his defence and went out and bought

Calvin Palmer Calvin Ian Palmer (21 October 1940 – 12 March 2014) was an English footballer who played in the Football League for Crewe Alexandra, Nottingham Forest, Sunderland and Stoke City. Palmer began his career with Nottingham Forest making 101 ap ...

from

Nottingham Forest Nottingham Forest Football Club is an association football club based in West Bridgford, Nottinghamshire, England. Nottingham Forest was founded in 1865 and have been playing their home games at the City Ground, on the banks of the River Tren ...

for £30,000 and

George Kinnell George Kinnell (22 December 1937 – 16 October 2021) was a Scottish footballer who played in the Football League for Middlesbrough, Oldham Athletic, Sunderland and Stoke City. Career Born in Cowdenbeath, Kinnell started his career in Scotl ...

from

Aberdeen Aberdeen (; sco, Aiberdeen ; gd, Obar Dheathain ; la, Aberdonia) is a city in North East Scotland, and is the third most populous city in the country. Aberdeen is one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas (as Aberdeen City), and ...

for £27,000 and another 'keeper

Lawrie Leslie Lawrence Grant Leslie (17 March 1935 – 4 June 2019) was a Scottish professional footballer who played as a goalkeeper for Hibernian, Airdrie, West Ham United, Stoke City, Millwall and Southend United. Internationally, he represented Scotlan ...

from

West Ham United West Ham United Football Club is an English professional football club that plays its home matches in Stratford, East London. The club competes in the Premier League, the top tier of English football. The club plays at the London Stadium, hav ...

. On the other hand, he released

Don Ratcliffe Donald Ratcliffe (13 November 1934 – 19 October 2014) was an English footballer who played in the Football League for Crewe Alexandra, Darlington, Middlesbrough and Stoke City. Career Ratcliffe was born in Newcastle-under-Lyme and joined ...

, and Ron Wilson. John Ritchie was introduced into the first team by October and he made an instant impression as he started scoring the first few of his 171 for the club. With Ritchie in full flow, things improved and in nine matches from early October to mid November, Stoke remained unbeaten. However around Christmas time the team again went through a bad spell losing eight times including some heavy defeats. Stoke recovered well in the second half of the season and began to pull themselves away from the danger zone. A huge 9–1 win over

Ipswich Town Ipswich Town Football Club is a professional association football club based in Ipswich, Suffolk, England. They play in League One, the third tier of the English football league system. The club was founded in 1878 but did not turn profession ...

in March gave the team the confidence they needed and five wins in their last nine fixtures lifted Stoke to a final position of 17th, 10 points above relegated

Bolton Wanderers Bolton Wanderers Football Club () is a professional football club based in Horwich, Bolton, Greater Manchester, England, which competes in . The club played at Burnden Park for 102 years from 1895 after moving from their original home at Pike's ...

FA Cup

Stoke beat

Portsmouth Portsmouth ( ) is a port and city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire in southern England. The city of Portsmouth has been a unitary authority since 1 April 1997 and is administered by Portsmouth City Council. Portsmouth is the most dens ...

4–1 in the third round and then edged past Ipswich in a replay before losing in a replay to Swansea.

League Cup

Away from the league Stoke had a great run in this seasons League Cup having made an unspectacular start to the competition which started in 1960. In 1963–64 they made it through to the final where they met

. Stoke's run had seen them knock-out

Scunthorpe United Scunthorpe United Football Club is a professional association football club based in the town of Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire, England. The side currently competes in the National League, the fifth tier of the English football league system. The tea ...

after three matches,

Bournemouth Bournemouth () is a coastal resort town in the Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole council area of Dorset, England. At the 2011 census, the town had a population of 183,491, making it the largest town in Dorset. It is situated on the Southern ...

Rotherham United Rotherham United Football Club, nicknamed The Millers, is a professional football club based in Rotherham, South Yorkshire, England, which compete in the . The club's colours were initially yellow and black, but changed to red and white around 1 ...

and then

in the semi final. The

itself was played over two legs, Stoke drawing 1–1 at the

Victoria Ground The Victoria Ground was the home ground of Stoke City from 1878 until 1997, when the club relocated to the Britannia Stadium after 119 years. At the time of its demolition it was the oldest operational ground in the Football League. History ...

in the first clash. This proved to be insufficient as Leicester won the return leg at

Filbert Street Filbert Street was a football stadium in Leicester, England, which served as the home of Leicester City F.C. from 1891 until 2002. Although officially titled the City Business Stadium in the early 1990s, it remained known almost exclusively b ...

3–2 giving them a 4–3 aggregate win and with it the League Cup.

Final league table

Results

''Stoke's score comes first''

Legend

Football League First Division

FA Cup

League Cup

Friendlies

Squad statistics

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:1963-64 Stoke City F.C. season Stoke City F.C. seasons

Stoke Stoke is a common place name in the United Kingdom. Stoke may refer to: Places United Kingdom The largest city called Stoke is Stoke-on-Trent in Staffordshire. See below. Berkshire * Stoke Row, Berkshire Bristol * Stoke Bishop * Stok ...