The 1978–79 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 72nd season in the Football League and the 25th in the Second Division.

Alan Durban William Alan Durban (born 7 July 1941) is a Welsh former international footballer and manager, whose career was at its peak between the 1970s and 1990s. He played in the Football League for Cardiff City, Derby County and was player-manager of ...

continued his good start at Stoke and they were involved in a promotion race from the start of the campaign. It proved to be a very exciting season with four clubs all keeping pace with each other meaning that it went down until the final match of the season. Stoke needed to beat Notts County at Meadow Lane to gain promotion and despite a large Stoke away following it seemed that County would spoil the party but with just two minutes remaining Paul Richardson scored the winning goal and Stoke took the final promotion position in the most dramatic way.

Season review

League

With all close season in which to work out the future,

turned to his old club Shrewsbury Town and paid £60,000 for midfielder

Sammy Irvine Samuel Irvine (born 7 January 1956) is a Scottish former footballer who played as a midfielder in the Football League for Shrewsbury Town and Stoke City. Career Irvine was born in Glasgow but started his career at English side Shrewsbury Tow ...

and paid £50,000 for

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 ...

's experienced defender

Mike Doyle Michael, Mick or Mike Doyle may refer to: Politics *Michael Doyle (Irish politician), Irish Farmers' Party politician from Wexford, TD from 1922 to 1927 *Michael Doyle, alleged member of the Molly Maguires *Mike Doyle (American politician) (born 1 ...

. The 1978–79 season started well with Stoke winning five of their first six matches.

Paul Randall Paul Randall (born 16 February 1958) is an English footballer who played in the English Football League for Bristol Rovers and Stoke City. Career Early career Randall was born in Sefton, Liverpool. His mother, June was born in Dar es Salaa ...

arrived from Bristol Rovers as Stoke maintained their good form. They were rarely out of the top three but neither were promotion rivals Brighton & Hove Albion, Crystal Palace and

Sunderland Sunderland () is a port city in Tyne and Wear, England. It is the City of Sunderland's administrative centre and in the Historic counties of England, historic county of County of Durham, Durham. The city is from Newcastle-upon-Tyne and is on t ...

. This meant that the race for promotion went all the way to the final day of the season and Stoke knew that they had to win their last League match away at Notts County to gain a return to the First Division. Backed by well over 14,000 fans, Stoke came out victorious albeit late on, Paul Richardson's header two minutes from time deciding the match and earned Stoke 3rd spot in the table, finishing a point above Sunderland.

FA Cup

Stoke suffered misfortune in this season's FA Cup when, having taken a 2–0 lead in their third round tie at home to Oldham Athletic, a heavy blizzard caused the match to be abandoned. In the rematch Oldham claimed a 1–0 victory.

League Cup

Stoke had a useful run beating Sunderland, Northampton Town and Charlton Athletic all away before losing 3–1 to Watford at the quarter-final stage.

Season review

League

FA Cup

League Cup

Final league table

Results

Legend

Football League Second Division

FA Cup

League Cup

Friendlies

Squad statistics

References

External links