# 1956–57 Stoke City F.C. season

The 1956–57 season was Stoke City's 50th season in the Football League and the 17th in the Second Division.
With Stoke now entering a fourth season of Second tier football, there was much pressure placed on both manager Frank Taylor and the squad for 1956–57. And Stoke made a great effort in an attempt to gain promotion with a fine home record and new floodlights which saw Lincoln City beaten 8–0 with Neville Coleman scoring 7. However, after this Stoke bizarrely failed to find the back of the net in six straight defeats and this poor run of form cost Stoke promotion and in the end they finished in 5th position with 48 points.

## Season review
### League

In the 1956–57 season, with the pressure on both the manager and players, Stoke made a great effort at winning promotion back to the First Division. A string of fine home results over Notts County (6–0), Leyton Orient (7–1) and Rotherham United (6–0) raised the fans hopes. Floodlights were installed in October 1956 and the first match under the lights was in the Potteries derby against Port Vale. A crowd of 38,729 turned up to see Stoke win 3–1 to maintain their good form.
Neville Coleman was getting the bulk of Stoke goals which accumulated on 23 February 1957 when Lincoln City arrived at the Victoria Ground. That day Stoke hammered luckless Lincoln 8–0 with Coleman scoring a record seven of the goals. At this stage of the season promotion looked like it could be achieved but all of a sudden Stoke's form completely dropped, after a 1–1 draw with Sheffield United Stoke lost their next six matches and failed to score in any of them and their hopes of promotion died.

### FA Cup

Stoke were drawn away at First Division side Arsenal in the third round and were beaten 4–2 by the "Gunners".

## Final league table

| Pos | Teamvte | Pld | W | D | L | GF | GA | GAv | Pts |
| 3 | Liverpool | 42 | 21 | 11 | 10 | 82 | 54 | 1.519 | 53 |
| 4 | Blackburn Rovers | 42 | 21 | 10 | 11 | 83 | 75 | 1.107 | 52 |
| 5 | Stoke City | 42 | 20 | 8 | 14 | 83 | 58 | 1.431 | 48 |
| 6 | Middlesbrough | 42 | 19 | 10 | 13 | 84 | 60 | 1.400 | 48 |
| 7 | Sheffield United | 42 | 19 | 8 | 15 | 87 | 76 | 1.145 | 46 |

## Results

Stoke's score comes first

### Legend

| Win | Draw | Loss |

### Football League Second Division

| Match | Date | Opponent | Venue | Result | Attendance | Scorers |
| 1 | 18 August 1956 | Middlesbrough | A | 1–1 | 13,116 | Cairns (pen) |
| 2 | 20 August 1956 | Grimsby Town | H | 1–0 | 20,921 | Coleman |
| 3 | 25 August 1956 | Leicester City | H | 3–1 | 23,675 | Coleman, Cairns (pen), Oscroft |
| 4 | 28 August 1956 | Grimsby Town | A | 1–4 | 17,722 | Bowyer |
| 5 | 1 September 1956 | Bristol Rovers | A | 0–4 | 25,430 | |
| 6 | 3 September 1956 | Doncaster Rovers | H | 1–1 | 14,497 | King |
| 7 | 8 September 1956 | Notts County | H | 6–0 | 18,564 | Kelly, Oscroft, Bowyer, Coleman (2), Cairns (pen) |
| 8 | 10 September 1956 | Doncaster Rovers | A | 0–4 | 14,674 | |
| 9 | 15 September 1956 | Liverpool | A | 2–0 | 47,119 | Kelly, King |
| 10 | 22 September 1956 | Leyton Orient | H | 7–1 | 19,957 | Kelly, King, Cairns (pen), Coleman, Oscroft (2), Bowyer |
| 11 | 29 September 1956 | Huddersfield Town | A | 2–2 | 16,202 | Oscroft, Bowyer |
| 12 | 6 October 1956 | Rotherham United | H | 6–0 | 21,589 | Oscroft, Bowyer, King (2), Coleman (2) |
| 13 | 10 October 1956 | Port Vale | H | 3–1 | 38,729 | Coleman (2), Kelly |
| 14 | 13 October 1956 | Lincoln City | A | 1–0 | 13,066 | Coleman |
| 15 | 20 October 1956 | Sheffield United | H | 3–3 | 26,849 | Coleman (2), Kelly |
| 16 | 27 October 1956 | Fulham | A | 0–1 | 29,748 | |
| 17 | 3 November 1956 | Nottingham Forest | H | 2–1 | 32,637 | Bowyer, Oscroft |
| 18 | 10 November 1956 | West Ham United | A | 0–1 | 17,500 | |
| 19 | 17 November 1956 | Blackburn Rovers | H | 4–1 | 21,067 | Bowyer, King, Coleman, Kelly |
| 20 | 24 November 1956 | Bristol City | A | 2–1 | 17,796 | Coleman, Kelly |
| 21 | 1 December 1956 | Swansea Town | H | 4–1 | 23,409 | Coleman, King, Bowyer (2) |
| 22 | 8 December 1956 | Barnsley | A | 2–2 | 11,626 | Bowyer, Kelly |
| 23 | 15 December 1956 | Middlesbrough | H | 3–1 | 20,679 | Coleman (3) |
| 24 | 22 December 1956 | Leicester City | A | 2–3 | 28,178 | Kelly (2) |
| 25 | 29 December 1956 | Bristol Rovers | H | 2–1 | 30,936 | Bowyer, Graver |
| 26 | 1 January 1957 | Bury | A | 1–0 | 13,180 | Graver |
| 27 | 12 January 1957 | Notts County | A | 0–5 | 13,620 | |
| 28 | 19 January 1957 | Liverpool | H | 1–0 | 31,144 | Oscroft |
| 29 | 2 February 1957 | Leyton Orient | A | 2–2 | 18,705 | Kelly (2) |
| 30 | 9 February 1957 | Huddersfield Town | H | 5–1 | 27,503 | Oscroft (2), Bowyer, Coleman, Cairns (pen) |
| 31 | 16 February 1957 | Rotherham United | A | 0–1 | 11,511 | |
| 32 | 23 February 1957 | Lincoln City | H | 8–0 | 10,790 | Coleman (7), King |
| 33 | 1 March 1957 | Sheffield United | A | 1–1 | 20,277 | Kelly |
| 34 | 9 March 1957 | Fulham | H | 0–2 | 24,766 | |
| 35 | 16 March 1957 | Nottingham Forest | A | 0–4 | 32,294 | |
| 36 | 23 March 1957 | West Ham United | H | 0–1 | 19,875 | |
| 37 | 30 March 1957 | Blackburn Rovers | A | 0–1 | 27,600 | |
| 38 | 6 April 1957 | Bristol City | H | 0–2 | 13,397 | |
| 39 | 13 April 1957 | Swansea Town | A | 0–1 | 15,000 | |
| 40 | 20 April 1957 | Barnsley | H | 3–0 | 11,600 | Bowyer (2), Graver |
| 41 | 22 April 1957 | Bury | H | 2–0 | 11,083 | Bowyer, Oscroft |
| 42 | 29 April 1957 | Port Vale | A | 2–2 | 18,573 | Graver, King |

### FA Cup

| Round | Date | Opponent | Venue | Result | Attendance | Scorers |
| R3 | 5 January 1957 | Arsenal | A | 2–4 | 56,173 | Oscroft, Coleman |

### Friendlies

| Match | Opponent | Venue | Result |
| 1 | Manchester City | H | 4–1 |
| 2 | FK Radnički Niš | H | 3–1 |
| 3 | Rot-Weiss Essen | H | 5–0 |
| 4 | Schwenningen | A | 1–3 |
| 5 | SSV Ulm 1846 | A | 4–0 |
| 6 | Forbach | A | 4–3 |
| 7 | FC Singen 04 | A | 4–2 |
| 8 | Forbach | A | 4–3 |
| 9 | OGC Nice | A | 1–2 |

## Squad statistics

| Pos. | Name | League | League | FA Cup | FA Cup | Total | Total |
| Pos. | Name | Apps | Goals | Apps | Goals | Apps | Goals |
| GK | Bill Robertson | 42 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 43 | 0 |
| DF | Alec Acton | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| DF | Peter Ford | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 |
| DF | John McCue | 39 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 40 | 0 |
| DF | Frank Mountford | 39 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 40 | 0 |
| DF | Ken Thomson | 40 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 41 | 0 |
| DF | Donald Whiston | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 0 |
| MF | Bill Asprey | 9 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 9 | 0 |
| MF | Bobby Cairns | 36 | 5 | 1 | 0 | 37 | 5 |
| MF | Edward Rayner | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 |
| MF | John Sellars | 40 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 41 | 0 |
| FW | Frank Bowyer | 38 | 14 | 1 | 0 | 39 | 14 |
| FW | Neville Coleman | 42 | 26 | 1 | 1 | 43 | 27 |
| FW | Andy Graver | 13 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 13 | 5 |
| FW | Colin Hutchinson | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| FW | Joe Hutton | 7 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 7 | 0 |
| FW | George Kelly | 30 | 13 | 1 | 0 | 31 | 13 |
| FW | Johnny King | 34 | 9 | 1 | 0 | 35 | 9 |
| FW | Harry Oscroft | 41 | 11 | 1 | 1 | 42 | 12 |
| FW | Peter Phoenix | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| FW | Don Ratcliffe | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| FW | Derrick Ward | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 0 |