Port Vale 3-2 Wigan Athletic. Saturday 16 December 2023, Vale Park.

Edge-of-your-seat stuff. Ethan Chislett with a hat-trick, two-nil up at half-time, Wigan clawing it back to a Desmond in the second half, before Chizzy found the winner. That result nudged us from 17th to 16th in the League One table. All this came on the back of a gritty 1–0 away win at Exeter the previous Saturday – Oli Arblaster with that goal.

Why am I dredging this up? Well, I have a quiet afternoon at work and thought I’d revisit December during our last League One relegation season. See if there were any patterns, any clues, any emerging themes that might explain why the owner and CEO appear so blind to the current mess when we literally went through the same thing just two years ago. Only it isn’t quite the same thing. This season we are in a far, far worse state.

Back to 2023. The following Saturday, 23 December, we snatched a draw at Wycombe (the son of Biddulph with a last-minute equaliser) to stay 16th. Then came Boxing Day: Barnsley at home. Possibly the worst Vale first-half I’ve ever witnessed. Maybe. Three down at the break, horrific defending, the third goal a speculative hoof from 35 yards that embarrassed Conor Ripley. We rallied with two in the second half – Jack Shorrock becoming our youngest-ever scorer, but still slid back to 17th. Then, on 29 December, we produced our best performance of the season: a 3–0 absolute demolition of Blackpool at Vale Park. That took us up to 14th.

So, we entered 2024 in 14th place. Fourteenth! What would we give for that now? And yet, like many fans, I had wanted Crosby gone long before New Year’s Day. In my head, things were far worse than they actually were. And looking back, I can almost understand why the board didn’t pull the trigger on Crosby before the transfer window, before it was all too late. Almost.

What changed? Oli Arblaster returned to Sheffield United before December ended, though he was injured anyway after the Middlesbrough Cup game –  Jason Lowe managing to dig right through to the bone with his studs – so wouldn’t have figured in any games.  Alfie Devine soon went back to Spurs. Two new loanees arrived: Jensen Weir and 56 minutes of Dan Gore. Not exactly like-for-like replacements, but let’s not pin January, February, and March on two young lads.

Because here’s the killer stat: We went 14 games without a win. Fourteen! From New Year’s Day until 23 March, when we finally beat Burton. Remember who scored that winner? Yeah, Ryan Loft! I still shudder when I think about him. Who were we playing when he tried a volley from 20-yards out and completely mis-kicked it? He was literally free with only the keeper to beat, just had to control the ball and score but did that instead. Went for divinity, a goal for the ages. What the fuck was he thinking? Christ on a fucking bike.

That barren run started at Carlisle and dragged us through Charlton, Portsmouth (fan chasing the ref off the pitch!), Fleetwood (Crosby sacked the day after, 20th in the league), Leyton Orient, Stevenage, Cheltenham (Moore’s first game), Reading, Lincoln, Fleetwood again (Jayden Stockley doing us dirty twice in three minutes), Derby, Shrewsbury, Orient, Oxford. We finished the season 23rd, winless in the last seven. We won just two league games from New Years Day until the end of the season.

The theme? Simple: we became as bad under Darren Moore in the second half of that season as we are under Darren Moore now. Seventeen games: two wins, eleven defeats, four draws. That’s what he gave us. So what convinces the owner and CEO that Moore can pull off a miracle? Lift us out of the abyss. What do they see that we don’t? I’d love to be wrong, but reality bites hard. I don’t live in Crazy Town.

Tomorrow we travel to Luton. If the great escape is going to happen, it has to start now. So let’s see what tomorrow has to say for itself. I’ve a feeling I already know.