Pros and Cons of dying, aged 98, on Saturday 14th May

As I mentioned, my beloved maternal grandmother passed away a couple of days ago (it's OK, I've got another one, and she's only 90).

So what did she miss?

Stoke City in its first ever FA Cup Final.
Stoke City losing in its first ever FA Cup Final.

The Eurovision Song Contest
One of the best Doctor Who episodes ever, written by Neil Gaiman.

Some good rain.

On balance, it was an OK day to depart.

And we're back at the FA Cup final

Here we go again. Disgracefully, the corporate seats which were denied to fans of the two teams are empty as their occupants hang around in the restaurants and cosy bars. What a way to treat an historic fixture.

I'm feeling horribly pessimistic about this. I've supported Stoke as long as I've known about football. The last few years have been a psychological struggle. For most of my life, Saturday afternoon was reserved for feeling miserable as we lost another one. We always had a false dawn leading up to Christmas, before being relegated or just escaping.

I was happy supporting a dour team struggling to survive. It matches my outlook on life. It was always nice to win a match here and there for a bit of variety (especially against Crewe and Port Vale), but success was a concept we knew existed, but never thought it could happen to us.

But gradually, we started to win matches and even get into the Premiership. Thankfully, we didn't give up the old ways: grim-faced graft was never going to give way to flashy silky skills straight away. Tony Pulis's tactics are Welsh slate to the diamond-studded glitz of the money teams, and it lasts longer.

But I'm still a Stoke fan: the further we go in a competition is another chance to lose on a bigger scale. That said, the new match tactic appears to be to get the ball and try to get it in Man City's goal, which is promising.

1618: Horrible, disgraceful tackle from Touré on Wilkinson. A bit of anger might be good for this match. The crowd sound much more alert. Now Balotelli cynically bundles over Pennant with an elbow in the back. Tempers may boil over. Free kick: we have several half chances. At least we're putting the pressure on. Damn: Tevez is marauding but da Silva leaves it too long and we somehow get away with it. Man City are surely going to score soon. Balotelli feeds Tevez but he drags it wide with help from Huth then Barry smashes it into the crowd.

1625: Excellent save from Sorenson - we've always had ace keepers, including Gordon Banks and Peter Shilton. Balotelli's getting some personal attention from his markers - they know he's likely to lash out if he's wound up. Not very sporting, but highly amusing.

1626: Brilliant long ball to Kenwyne Jones and he manages to arse up a one-on-one: the most glorious chance of the game. Joe Hart did really well to come for it but Jones really should have scored and I'm gutted. Etherington off, Whitehead on. What a missed opportunity that was - a moment of genius denied. More like that, definitely. But finished off.

1629: Weak shot from Tevez easily saved. Now we've another Rory Special. Stoke fans now singing Swing Low Sweet Chariot in honour of Arsene Wenger calling Stoke a rugby team. Shawcross drags down Balotelli - very dangerous free kick coming up. Lots of messy defending but it's OK in the end.

1638: Got bored. And it's raining and cold here. Maybe it's because my gran died today, but it's hard to keep up my enthusiasm through all the half-moves.

My mum walks in and Touré (£220,000 wages  per week) smashes the ball into our goal after an extended period of penalty-box pinball. Turns out I am emotionally invested in this match after all. There's no coming back from this. Now there's more handbags and Wilkinson gets a yellow for a late sneaky tackle on Balotelli. Suddenly Mancunians are singing.

Kenwyne Jones should rue his awful finishing - it could all be so different. Man City are rampant now. On comes Carew for us: a big, ugly old defender who can be very effective when on form, in place of Rory Delap. Man City are all over us now, though our defence is doing the business.

Still, it's not long since we were playing Yeovil and Co and we've played brilliant football in the Premiership this year.

3 minutes' extra time. Why bother. All the players on the pitch have accepted the status quo. Or perhaps not: we've got a corner after good stuff from Walters. Even our goalkeeper is up in their penalty area now. So Man City go for a substitution to drag it out a bit. Viera's on. It bounces around and we get another corner. This is torture. I'd love it if our goalie scored. But no - goal kick and surely it's all over.

And it is. Trophies all round for Manchester teams today. We were outplayed and we didn't get much of a chance to show what we can do. But still… we used to be rubbish and now we're now, and we're in European football next year. Oddly enough, we're playing Man City again on Tuesday…

Our fans are singing - brilliant. No dejectedly streaming out of the ground, just full-throated support. They're still singing and staying in their seats.

TV coverage reverts to the usual clichés: crying children etc. At least Micah Richards just said 'fooking' on live TV. Balotelli tells us that he's 'happy' and that he told his colleagues to respect Stoke as 'a team'. He also said he previously played 'sheet'. You wouldn't get this on the BBC. Adrian Chiles is now apologising.

In the spirit of modern football, we cut to adverts even before all the Manchester City players have collected their medals.

The Man City fans are all singing Status Quo's 'Rocking All Over The World': including Liam Gallagher. That must make a change from his day job. Arf!

FA Cup Final live

It's a weird situation - grandmother passed away 12 hours ago, the relatives contacted, and there's an odd lull in the proceedings - filled by the FA Cup Final. She didn't die for 98 years, then picked Stoke's only Cup Final day since it was founded in 1863. How disobliging. Typical of a Watford fan. Can I enjoy it? I hope so, though I'm aware that sounds horribly selfish. What are we meant to be doing?

First impressions: why are the army involved? They're all over the pitch before kick-off. An RAF officer is carrying the cup. Odd, unsettling propaganda. Is it meant to imply that playing well on the pitch equates to military bravery?

Liam Gallagher is still excited to be on the big screen: that's rather endearing.

Stoke's Welsh manager is wearing a daffodil, but his trademark baseball cap is inexplicably missing. Perhaps it's being cast in bronze as next year's trophy. Kenwyne Jones seems to have styled his hair with epoxy resin. It looks like someone's taken a blowtorch to a time-trial cycle helmet.

Some of Stoke's mascot kids are porky little numbers. No idea about the Man City ones - not looking at them. I've just muted the TV for the British national anthem. Is it true that a lot of fans sing 'God Save Our Greatest Team'? I hope so.

15.05: That's better, Tony's back in his cap and tracksuit. Legend has it that if it falls off during a match, we get relegated. Balotelli's playing: I'm sure we can wind him up and have him sent off in short order.

15.11: Sorenson saves a Man City shot. I'm quite nervous. And sober. Perhaps that's what's wrong. Man City do seem a bit calmer. At least we have one advantage: they can only play pretty football. If style doesn't work for us, we can fall back on violent disruptive play. There's a lot to be said for dour hard work. When is Rory going to get a long throw?

1514: Subbuteo in the box followed by a Manc corner and lots of Manc shots. Brilliant strike on the floodlights by De Jong. He may have bounced the shot off the 3.00 BA flight to Dallas. Perhaps our strategy is to let them run around a lot with the ball until they're tired. Oh dear, another Manc corner. Not very good, but they're getting far too many. Yaya Touré just smashes another shot just the wrong side of the goalpost. We really need to keep the ball for a few seconds.

1518: At last: a Rory Delap trebuchet shot. Nothing off it, but at least we're getting into their half.

1519: And another throw. Slightly more promising. Etherington's struggling though, and Man C are all over him. Manc are really pushing though. Balotelli's down with a head injury. Huth elbowed him in the face, the moron. He'd have been off if the ref had seen it.

Soft free kick for us. We're good at set pieces: undeserved goal coming up? No. Easy catch by Joe Hart.

1525: Tevez almost has a clear shot, then Barry but Sorensen and Huth get us out of trouble and Walters is streaking down the side but the move peters out. Man City are passing it around in our half like they own it.

1527: Kenwyne Jones gets into their box and causes trouble for the Man City defence, but they manage to take it off them. I almost got excited there. Now we've got another set-piece - a free kick which flies into Row Z. I assume the Japanese calligraphy on Wilson's(?) forearm is flight coordinates.

1530: Brilliant save from Sorensenn saves a Balotelli shot that was definitely going in. Corner now. Oh dear. Lots of handbags in there. No real shot there, then another one from further out. It's all a little ragged and hopeful, but Man City are putting moves together and taking shots. Our strikers aren't reduced to spectators.

1533: Walters tries to head across their goalmouth but it goes into the side netting. We're not intimidating them they way we did with Bolton and Arsenal. Stoke's last (and only) major trophy was the League Cup in 1972, 3 years before I was born. We did win the Auto-Glass Windscreens Trophy though. Twice, I think.

1537: Great shot from Kompany thankfully saved by Sorensen and it's down their end for a very good corner from Pennant which Hart saves. Rory's got another chance with a long throw. He fools everybody by making it a short one, and it's out again for another go. Our strikers arse up a shooting opportunity and we all womble out in midfield for a while. Man City throw looks short and weak after seeing Rory's 3-mile rocket launchers. The crowd's quite quiet now. Dare I say even bored?
1542: They aren't now: goalmouth scrambles as Balotelli and da Silva miss sitters. We're hugely lucky not to be down 1-0.

Apparently there's someone called Tevez on the pitch, but he's not been seen much. He cost Man City roughly the same as Stoke's entire team.

1545: More goalmouth scrambles courtesy of Balotelli. I wonder what the atmosphere's like in Stoke today. As I walked through, every other person wore a shirt and flags were flying. Strangers nodded to each other or shouted Goooarrrn at each other. Which was nice.

Very silly tackle from Huth. Yellow card and a dangerous free kick. Dangerous if you're sitting in the top row behind the goal, that is.

1548: De Jong sidefoot eludes everybody but goes out wide. I'm hanging on for half-time now. We're hanging on nervously. Kolorov boots another one into orbit. We get a free kick in a useful area but De Jong clears it. Tevez and Pennant are injured. That could be very bad news for us. We're really not playing at our best and Pennant's the best Stoke player on the pitch.

Half time. And not a moment too soon. Back in 15 minutes.

Going Potty

Well that was one of the most joyful 90 minutes of my life as a Stoke fan, of which there aren't many. We've just beaten Bolton, who usually play attractive football, 5-0 to get into the FA Cup final for the first time ever, and better finishing would have made the score even higher.

Somehow it feels wrong - Stoke fans aren't bred for success. We're used to spending Saturday evenings in post-defeat gloom and Mondays soaking up the abuse of our 'friends' and colleagues. I remember the days when Port Vale (!) had the local bragging rights… I wonder where they are now. Anyway, all this means is that we'll be too tired to win the matches we need to survive the Premiership, and we're merely postponing defeat until the final. No. That's the old mentality. We're going to win everything from now on. Ahem.

Stoke's first goal goes in: many more to come!