On Wednesday Stoke-on-Trent celebrated its 100th birthday, although you would have been hard-pressed to spot the celebrations. In the bowels of Stoke town hall, however, 300 people sat down to a celebratory dinner costing taxpayers an estimated £25,000. No, I didn’t get an invite either.

It would be all too easy to speculate that the evening was an excuse for councillors and their cronies to get fat and drunk at our expense but that would be unfair, there were far greater issues at hand, the presentation of the Citizen of the Century award for one. The award was an attempt to recognise the “the ordinary men and women on the streets” who helped make Stoke-on-Trent the city it is today.

The public got the chance to have their say on this matter and were meant to nominate 50 people for this award, although I can only find mentions of 12 in the local media, so it’s unclear whether they hit that target.

• cancer campaigner Dot Griffiths
• fund-raiser John Leese
• grassroots-football organiser Graham Hemmings
• potteries worker Lynn Bentley
• Kelvin Bowers, who ran from Stoke-on-Trent to Sydney, Australia
• museum volunteer Phil Rowley
• charity volunteer Sue Chandler
• Music-hall star Gertie Gitana (died 1957)
• John Caudwell, enterpreneur and philanthropist
• football manager John Rudge
• opera singer Anne Dawson
• cartoonist Dave Follows (died 2003)

A panel put together by the council then picked an additional ten nominees, which if you replace Jack Ashley with John Baskeyfield and Loes Ashley then becomes the “ full list of nominees” as seen below.

• darts player Phil Taylor
• pop star Robbie Williams
• footballer Gordon Banks
• Lance Sergeant John Baskeyfield (died 1944)
• Loes Ashley (Google and I haven’t a clue, sorry)
• writer Arnold Bennett (died 1931)
• Doug Brown, lord mayor and grassroots-football organiser (died 2002)
• ceramicist Clarice Cliff (died 1972)
• Sir Oliver Lodge, physicist and inventor (died 1940)
• footballer Sir Stanley Matthews (died 2000)
• Reginald Mitchell, creator of the Spitfire (died 1937)
• Millicent, Duchess of Sutherland (died 1955)

The process behind all of this is a mystery but what we end up with is a £25,000 award dinner with 300 place settings – only four of which ever had the slightest chance of having a nominee sat at them. It’d sound like an excuse for a slap-up meal were it not for Stoke-on-Trent City Council’s history of frugality and good judgement. Like the time they spent more than £700 on commemorative umbrellas.

I guess we’ll just have to trust the press office when they say the event was attended by worthy people including “Citizen of the Century nominees and representatives, city councillors, and other distinguished visitors” and look forward to the other centenary year celebrations they’ve got planned for us.  They’re all listed in a handy 2010 Press Pack if you’d like to read along with me, mind you these are only the “Key Events”.

February 13 – March 7: Staffordshire Hoard Launch

The Staffordshire Hoard is a collection of more than 1,500 pieces of gold and silver jewellery dating from Anglo-Saxon times and found last year in a field near Lichfield.

Stoke-on-Trent is a collection of six towns which became one city in 1910 and  celebrates its federation on March 31.

This seems a tenuous link at best and the Hoard launch sounds like it would have taken place regardless of the centenary.

19 February: Royal visit

Fair play, Charles and Camilla did set foot in Stoke-on-Trent. It was the day when all the Charles and Di commemorative plates were turned to face the wall. Chaz and Cam even made the cover of a booklet sent to all residents called Your guide to Council Tax, Finance and Performance 2010/ 2011. Yay.

31 March: Federation Day

I think we may have talked about this up top, it was the £25,000 meal one.

1 April: Sports Personality of the Year

Annual events and centenary celebrations aren’t quite the same thing but I guess they’ve got the rest of the year to figure that out.

Hands on Pot unveiling (Date TBC)

This is a large clay sculpture that was designed by schoolchildren… to mark the millennium. So after ten years the council have decided to take it out of storage and unveil it, they’re just not quite sure when yet. Here’s another story where they rotate a sculpture 90 degrees after deciding it was put it in wrong.

30 May: 2010k Run

Sponsored by Staffs Uni? Crafty, I see what you did there.

23 July: Multi Faith Celebration

The Archbishop of York visits the city.

Sir Stanley Matthews Cup (Date TBC)

A school football tournament.

12 September: Tour Ride and 26 September: Tour of Britain

Okay, I’m just going to copy paste this from earlier;  “Annual events and centenary celebrations aren’t quite the same thing but I guess they’ve got the rest of the year to figure that out.”

18 November: finale event

Fireworks and Christmas lights switch-on? Okay one last time; “Annual events and centenary celebrations aren’t quite the same thing but I guess they’ve got the rest of the year to figure that out.” …nevermind.