Stoke City Football Club is a professional football club based in Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England. They compete in the EFL Championship, the second tier of English football.
Founded as Stoke Ramblers in 1863, the club changed its name to Stoke in 1878 and then to Stoke City in 1925 after Stoke-on-Trent was granted city status. Stoke's home ground is the 30,089 capacity bet365 Stadium. Before it was opened in 1997, the club was based at the Victoria Ground, which was their home ground since 1878. The club's nickname is The Potters, after the pottery industry in Stoke-on-Trent, and their traditional home kit is a red-and-white vertically striped shirt, white shorts and stockings. Their traditional rivals are Midlands clubs West Bromwich Albion and Wolverhampton Wanderers, whilst their local rivals are Port Vale with whom they contest the Potteries derby.
Although there are reports of the game being played in Stoke in 1863 and the club gives this as its official date of formation, the Stoke Ramblers club was formed in 1868 by Henry Almond, who had been a student at Charterhouse school where a dribbling form of the game was popular. Almond arrived in the region to become an apprentice with the North Staffordshire Railway Company and, wishing to continue playing the game that he had enjoyed whilst at school, established the first formal association football club in the region. The club's first documented match was in October 1868, against a scratch team brought together for the occasion by E.W May. Harry Almond captained the Stoke Ramblers team and also scored the club's first goal. The club's first recorded away match was at Congleton, a rugby club that were convinced to play a one-off fixture under association rules, in December 1868. From the 1860s, the club played at the Victoria Cricket Club ground; however they switched to a nearby ground at Sweetings Field in 1875 to cope with rising attendances.
In 1870, after two seasons as the Ramblers, the club dropped the suffix from its title and became known as Stoke Football Club. It became closely aligned with Stoke Victoria Cricket Club, sharing facilities and some administrative responsibilities. The club played at the Athletic Club ground, which soon became known as the Victoria Ground. It was around this time that the club adopted their traditional red-and-white striped kit. In August 1885, the club turned professional.
Stoke were one of the twelve founding members of the Football League when it was introduced in 1888. The club struggled in their first two seasons, 1888–89 and 1889–90, finishing bottom on both occasions. In 1890 Stoke failed to be re-elected, the first club to do so, and joined the Football Alliance, which they won, and thus were re-elected to the Football League. Stoke spent the next 15 seasons in the First Division and reached the FA Cup semi-final in the 1898–99 season before being relegated in 1907 with severe financial problems. Stoke went bankrupt at the end of the 1907–08 season and entered non-league football, playing in the Birmingham & District League and Southern League until 1915, when the First World War meant the Football League was suspended for four years. However, at the League's Annual General Meeting of that year, Stoke was re-elected to the Second Division at the expense of Glossop. During the wartime period, Stoke entered the Lancashire Primary and Secondary leagues. When football recommenced in August 1919, Stoke was back in the league.
The club became owners of the Victoria Ground in 1919. This was followed by the construction of the Butler Street stand, which increased the overall capacity of the ground to 50,000. In 1925, Stoke-on-Trent was granted city status and this led the club to change its name to Stoke City F.C.
