Stoke City 2, Bradford City 1: Just over Gary Walsh's right shoulder at Stoke's Britannia Stadium was a sign advertising Mr Lucky Bags.

The board promised treats and surprises for everyone, young and old.

Try telling that to the City goalkeeper stalking his penalty area 20 yards away.

He dished out a gift of his own to the home team, presenting their first goal in Division One on a silver platter.

It is 19 months since Walsh committed hari-kiri against Manchester United at Valley Parade.

It was back in January 2001 when the City stalwart must have wished the ground would open up and swallow him after the swing and miss from a back pass which gave Teddy Sheringham the easiest of tap-ins.

Walsh will have to live with that agonising memory for the rest of his career and his kicking from a running ball still bears the scars of that and the numerous knee operations he has endured. Unfortunately now he has a fresh devil to exorcise.

The opposition or the stage was nowhere near as grand, but his mistake on Saturday will seem ten-times more painful.

This wasn't a freak case of stubbing your toe in the ground or inadvertently making contact with the ball with the standing foot while cocking the other leg.

Walsh had an age to clear from a back pass but delayed and delayed until suddenly it was too late.

If school teams want a video to show youngsters the importance of never giving up, this is the one.

Stoke striker Andy Cooke went to close down Walsh more through a sense of duty than anything else.

But then he had a sniff of the goal, a slight sense that the goalkeeper was hesitating that fateful second too long.

Cooke slid in and connected with the end of his big toe. Hardly the heaviest contact but just enough to prod the ball the half dozen yards needed to cross the line.

"I don't think there is ever a lost cause and he has proved that," beamed jubilant Stoke manager Steve Cotterill. "You don't want that sort of thing to happen to anyone.

"But I would rather say that we were far enough up the field that a striker was able to close down the goalkeeper into the wind.

"It tells you we were on our front foot for quite a bit of the first half."

And on the back foot for all of the second. But the damage had already been done by then for City.

By the time the Bantams got out of first gear they were two adrift and making a very, very ordinary side like Stoke look half-decent.

This was a great time to play the newly-promoted side. They had injuries all over the park and captain Peter Handyside had dropped out the night before with a virus.

Cotterill's starting line-up included five from their academy and a centre-half who hadn't kicked a ball in anger since mid-January. Talk about being there for the taking.

But the tone was set by Walsh's goof in the opening minutes. Suddenly Stoke - without a goal from their two previous games - had the bit between their teeth.

They still may not have been very good but they were suddenly chasing every ball with twice the eagerness. As their gaffer said, there was no such thing as a lost cause.

Their returning centre-half, Petur Marteinsson, not content with blowing away the cobwebs at the back, even romped forward to head the second after a free-kick had looped across the City goal off the head of Lewis Emanuel.

The goals were Stoke's only efforts on target. For all their squalls of pressure, Walsh was hardly put under pressure after that.

Barring a header from Andy Tod, who had been prefered to Danny Cadamarteri, City had conjured even less at the other end and revealed little of the fighting appetite that had served them so well against Wolves and Crystal Palace.

It had to improve after the break and with Nicky Law's fuming words at half-time ringing in their ears, thankfully it did. Losing Jamie Lawrence with a possible broken ankle did not help.

But pushing Emanuel, a naturally left-footed player, into midfield to cover his absence seemed to give the side a better balance.

And the appearance of Cadamarteri just after the hour for Tod breathed new impetus into the attack. He had been under the weather with a virus during the week but Cadamarteri's performances in the first two games hardly threatened to set the world alight. But right from the outset on Saturday he looked sharp and dangerous. It took only five minutes to turn that into a "goal" as Andy Myers, who had switched effectively to left back, set him up for a sweeping drive past Neil Cutler.

As City celebrated, though, the flag was up against skipper Ashley Ward for offside.

Law said: "I was raging at the time although the TV people said afterwards that it was a good decision.

"Ashley may have been in the keeper's eye-line but I don't see how he was interfering with play.

"I'm not going to get involved, though. I've been in enough problems with the officials and everyone is in the same boat.

"We are finishing every game and the only story in the dressing room is how bad the officials have been.

"We've had four more bookings and there wasn't a bad tackle there."

City have now clocked up 11 yellow cards in the first week, hardly the best start when your squad is thinner than Wimbledon's away following.

Andy Gray was one of those names in Roy Oliver's bulging black book but he had something to smile about with an effort that did count in the last minute of normal time.

City had set up squatting rights in the Stoke half by that point and when the fourth official lifted up the board announcing four extra minutes there was a lifeline.

But Tom Kearney clattered a thundering drive against Ward and Stoke hung on for a fortuitous victory.

They didn't even need Mr Lucky Bags to hand over their first three points.