Football Season's Greetings, with Hanley Bear

Ay up, everyone!  Sonning says I can write a post for his blog, so here's one about Saturday afternoons at our house ( and sometimes Tuesday or Wednesday evenings too).

If it's a wet day and we can't play in the garden or go for a walk, Sonning, Endon and I get some exercise jumping on Polar and Grizzly's bed.  This is a lot of fun as well as being good for us, although we are too small to tidy the bed up afterwards, so Polar or Grizzly has to do that.

But, whatever we are doing, when it's time for the match, I fetch the other bears' scarves out of the Bear Basket for them, and we all set off downstairs to Grizzly's workshop.

Grizzly makes sure the workshop is nice and warm for us all by putting on the heater, then he puts our seat next to the radio, so we don't miss any of the action.  He tunes it in to Radio Stoke - and then it's time for kick-off.  Yay!!

Grizzly has plenty of things to do while he's listening, like adding extra little details to his model engines and building 'OO' scale narrowboats.  Grizzly has made some of the boats from kits and others from scratch, using balsa wood.  One even has a little model engine inside that you can see through the side hatch.

At half-time, Polar brings in a cup of tea for Grizzly and a big stroopwafel for us bears to share.  If Stoke are winning comfortably, it is nice to relax and talk about the game but, if they are losing or drawing, or only one goal ahead, I get very nervous.

In the second half, I like to stand right beside the radio, sending maximum Bear Luck thoughts to all the players.  I'm sure this helps a lot although Sonning isn't sure it makes that much difference.

Last season, we didn't play very well until the last few games but this season has been very different, partly thanks to Mr Michael O'Neill our manager, who seems to have worked out some good new tactics for us, and partly because the players have been working really hard.  We are in the top half of the table and very close to the 'play-off' places, so it's possible we might get promoted back to the Premiership.

'We need a little more Bear Luck,' I told Sonning and Endon, after we lost our game against Cardiff earlier this month - and then we were joined by an extra bear, apparently on a free transfer from Celtic or Rangers (he won't say which, in case it upsets anyone).  

Waverley is very small but that doesn't mean he is less lucky than a big bear, so I made sure he had his own Stoke City scarf ready for our next game.  

And we won it!  Yaaayyy!!!  Even though he hasn't had any of Mrs Kay's oatcakes yet, Waverley is now officially a Stoke City Lucky Bear!

Of course it would be even better if we could watch the game in the ground again, and give hard stares to Stoke's opponents (and sometimes the referee), but it's not safe for Grizzly yet, so we will carry on cheering on the team from the workshop.

Come on you Mighty Potters!