Jonathan Walters was sure what would happen next.

A lifetime of comics and movies where the tribulated hero makes it all okay by full time through the sheer force of will had trained him for this moment. Two own goals are a poor day at the office by any standard, but Walters could feel the mythic coaching powers of Roy Race, Michael Caine and Al Pacino being channelled to him through the determined crags of Tony Pulis’ face.

This is the time Jonathan, score this, spark the comeback that the grandfathers of Stoke yet to come will whisper to their infant charges. Those two own goals will cease to be calamity, and become instead the platform for your greatest triumph. Four goals in injury time? Against the European Champions? Easy. And it all starts here.

Just stick away the penalty.

This would be Stoke City in the microcosm – ignore your past, your disadvantages, the howling cries of the outsiders telling you success cannot be achieved and certainly never be deserved. Gird all girdable body parts, pull courage from those determined crags, and blooter that ball between the sticks.

Just stick away the penalty.

This would be Jonathan Walters in microcosm – the indefatigable forward of limited skill but boundless heart, the boy who wavered erratically like a Shawcross through-ball between ten clubs in the first seven years of his career, before finally finding his niche working the channels of Portman Road. The man whose sheer resolve propelled a lower-league archetype into a bastion of top-flight consistency – the man who is about to Stoke this penalty like a penalty has never been Stoked before. Player and club, fates entwined, each a perfect reflection of the other. Get knocked down, get back up again, and-

Just stick away the penalty.

…

…oh.

Well, sometimes you’re the brave embodiment of everything that your club stands for, and sometimes you’re just having a shocker of Woodgatian proportions.

The sheer brazenness of those own goals though, it has to be admired. The desire and alertness Walters displays in making those powerful headed clearances that are textbook in every respect apart from being aimed the diametrically wrong direction is breathtaking. The first goal in particular, where Walters makes a beautifully timed late run to the back post, stealing a march on his marker and catching the ball right on the most diabetes-inducing part of the sweet spot was glorious in its infelicity. Fernando Torres may well have gazed upon it and felt a twinge for the days when he might have made such a movement into an opposition penalty area, rather than strolling around the periphery like a sack of damp marshmallows as is his current wont – but its more likely that the Spaniard preferred to bask in the glow of being only the second most hapless forward on display.

At this point, I should say that I feel for Jonathan Walters, how terrible it is for an honest, hard-working player to be the victim of such cruel misfortune. I’m not going to though, because I viewed Walters’ hilarious performance as a much-needed shaft of entertainment in the otherwise slate-grey horror of a Stoke City season.

It is the done thing, whenever someone points out that watching Stoke is joy-rending ordeal of muscular monotony, to quickly add that all forms of play are as valid as each other, and that Stoke are well within their rights to perform in whatever manner brings them success. This is of course true – and indeed basing your team on clean-sheets and set-pieces is a pretty sensible course of action in a league where only four or five defences can be described as even vaguely competent without choking back cruel laughter as – say – Gaël Clichy stands in a pocket of obliviousness, trying to decide if he prefers butterscotch or chocolate Angel Delight as opposing forwards race goalward.

I’m certain that the vast majority of Stoke fans are overjoyed at the work that Tony Pulis’ gristle and violence production line is carrying out – but I am not a Stoke fan, and I get plenty of skill-averse distress at my own club thank you very much. I look to the wider world of football for entertainment from the game I love, and when my eye falls on the Potteries all I see is despair and grinding routine and Glenn Whelan.

Stoke are allowed to play however they please, and that’s okay. I’m allowed to dislike their play intensely, and that’s okay too. I know it’s not there for me, that my opinion matters not a jot. That I should just ignore Stoke City if I don’t like it – but Stoke City is there, every week, taking up 5% of Match of the Day. So thank you Jonathan Walters for being so futile and interesting, if only for one game. Though I do hope it happens to you again and again forever for the purposes of my own selfish amusement.

Sorry.