If Stoke City’s social media community is anything to go by, February 19 will become some sort of day of remembrance in the Potteries.
Ryan’s Day.
Grown Staffordshire men were weeping into their tweets on Friday, there was talk of statues, and tear-stained pleas for the number 17 jersey to be retired.
There were video tributes, distraught Stokies calling for the stadium to be renamed, some too sick to stomach their oatcakes.
The momentous occasion? Ryan Shawcross was leaving Stoke City.
It is easy to mock. Even Shawcross himself might have been a little embarrassed by the outpouring of emotion on confirmation of his departure for a great gig in Miami in Major League Soccer.
But you know what? It was brilliant. It was a reminder of what a player can mean to a club and its community.
(Image: PA)
It was a reminder of the relationship that can bond the three.
A community that has been and is going through a hard time finds escape, finds joy, finds a purpose in its football club.
And they want that club to be represented by qualities they would like to think characterise themselves. Or they would want to characterise themselves.
Sure, flamboyant talent is as appreciated at Stoke in the same way it is appreciated anywhere else. They have had more of it than you might think.
But in Shawcross and in the 14 years in which he led them in the Premier League, to an FA Cup Final and to Europe, they saw someone who, in his commitment to the club, was unflinching, unfussy, uncomplicated, uncompromising, uninterested in the bright lights and commercial trappings of fame.
(Image: Action Images via Reuters)
Shawcross was and is a better footballer than ever given credit for. He deserved international recognition more extensive than a cameo against Sweden, during which Zlatan Ibrahimovic embarrassed the entire England team, not only Shawcross.
And you do not play over 300 Premier League games without being a fine footballer.
But the reaction of fans to the Shawcross departure is also a reminder that heroes do not have to come with drag-backs and social media profiles, with highlights reels and Insta hordes.
Unyielding physical commitment still counts.
Of course, beyond the parameters of the Stoke fanbase, any reflection on Shawcross’s career will include the challenge that badly broke Aaron Ramsey’s leg in early 2010.
If he had his time again, you would like to think Shawcross would not lunge for a ball that had escaped his control and he was not winning back.
Was it reckless? Yes, it was. Was it intentional? Was it malicious? The player says no and no.
Should you believe him? Well, let’s put it this way.
If there is one attribute you can give to Shawcross on the evidence of his 14 years at Stoke City, it is, beyond question, honesty.
Rightly or wrongly, the demonisation of Shawcross in the aftermath of that incident fitted a convenient media narrative.
(Image: REX/Shutterstock)
Arsenal and Arsene Wenger, pure football. Stoke and Tony Pulis, anti-football.
It was, of course, never as simple as that.
But did a player such as Shawcross make up for a shortfall in stardust with resilience, with loyalty, with leadership and, above all, with an awareness of what the football club he led meant to the people, meant to the community?
Quite clearly, he did.
And maybe it is because that type of character is becoming harder and harder to find in modern-day football that Stoke City had a day of remembrance on February 19, 2021.
