The 2016/17 season was, for so many reasons, an astonishing one for Vale. Not quite on the level of the Jim Gannon Experience™ – nothing short of an exorcism could match that – but still deeply shambolic in its own uniquely Vale way. What’s even more incredible, looking back, is that this circus of a squad still outperformed the one we’ve had this season. However bad things felt back then… well, this year has made it look downright functional.

But how bad actually was it?

The previous season (2015/16), despite a reduced wage budget, we’d finished a perfectly respectable 12th in League One under Rob Page – a league position these days we can now only dream of. Page left for Northampton when the season came to an end, which was hardly surprising. After an FA Cup defeat at Exeter, Smurf reportedly climbed onto a supporters’ coach and told everyone that Page “would soon be gone.” Who’s sticking around after that? Who isn’t bolting for the door at the first opportunity?

Enter Bruno Ribeiro

On 20 June 2016 arrived Bruno Ribeiro – former Leeds United player, Mourinho’s mate, and owner of a managerial record that made the Vale faithful reach instinctively for the brandy. José allegedly recommended him, although whether that was based on coaching ability or simply because “he’s a sound lad and always gets his round in” remains unclear. Mourinho certainly didn’t think enough of him to loan us any youngsters from the Chelsea stable.

Three days later –  23 June 2016 – with the whole nation divided on Vale’s appointment of Ribeiro, the UK voted to leave the EU.

Vale Park, however, was preparing for its own European revolution.

The Continental Invasion

With Bruno in charge players began arriving from clubs, leagues, and in some cases galaxies, we’d never heard of:

Kjell Knops, Rigino Cicilia, Quentin Pereira, Anthony de Freitas, Calvin Mac‑Intosh, Paulo Tavares, Kiko, Carlos Saleiro, Chris Mbamba, Sebastien Amoros, Miguel Santos, Gezim Shalaj.

Also sprinkled into the mix were; Jerome Thomas, Anton Forrester, Nathan Ferguson, Alex Jones (loan), Sam Hart (loan, once bitten, twice shy? Not us!), Martin Paterson, Ryan Taylor plus the survivors from the previous season, including: Jak Alnwick, Ben Purkiss, Remi Streete, Nathan Smith (fresh from his loan at  Torquay. The boy had become a man), Anthony Grant, Sam Foley, JJ Hooper, Sam Kelly.

In his season preview in Derek, I’m Gutted!!!, Andy McCormack wrote: “maybe finish top, maybe finish bottom.” The bottom proved the more prophetic.

January would bring even more changes, including a borderline attempt on the Guinness World Record for “Most Goalkeepers Employed by One Club During a Crisis.”

A quick disclaimer…

My recollection isn’t perfect. Some of these things may not have happened exactly as written, or perhaps not have happened at all. But they happened in my head – that’s what’s important, and that’s what you’re getting.

Pre‑Season: Early Signs of Doom

I barely bother with pre‑season normally, but I had to see this squad for myself. So off to Kidsgrove I went. I stopped in The Blue Bell Inn (beautiful little pub) for a couple of pints before heading to the match – and, tellingly, found myself back there shortly after half‑time.

Pre‑season games are usually disjointed, but that first half was indescribably dreadful. I think Anthony Malbon played for Grove. What I definitely remember is that The Blue Bell was serving Oakham Citra, and that missing the second half for another couple or five of those was one of my best decisions ever.

The Spine That Kept Us Afloat

Despite all the continental imports, Ribeiro’s starting XI was rarely as exotic as people remember. For the first half of the season, we had a recognisable spine:

• Jak Alnwick
• Remi Streete & Smudge
• Anthony Grant anchoring midfield
• Alex Jones up front

I’m pretty sure Purkiss, Hoops, Forrester, Thomas, Kelly, and Foley all played regularly too during that first four months of the season. Usually only 3, maybe 4 on occasion, sometimes only a couple of our imports started at once. Only Tavares, Kiko, de Freitas, Knops and Reggie made it past more than 20 appearances.

The European Army: Player‑by‑Player

A rundown of the squad of wonders:

Miguel Santos (Goalkeeper)

Young lad, gone before the season ended. Three appearances. My abiding memory is the FA Cup at Huddersfield: Jak gets injured, Santos comes on looking like he wants to be anywhere else. He was shitting himself. Completely out of his depth. You had to feel for him.

Carlos Saleiro (Striker)

Raised on the works of Arnold Bennett and his ‘five towns‘ Saleiro arrived with a romanticised notion of Burslem, fully expecting to throw himself into Bennett’s Victorian genteel society of the mother town; the moneyed respectability of Cobridge, the splendour of St Johns Square, the fabulous dances at The George Hotel. The reality proved too much for Carlos. He was soon on the plane back home without making a single league  appearance.

Kjell Knops (Defender)

A genuinely decent player. Suffered a devastating injury late in the season. Stayed the following year but couldn’t play. By all accounts a class act in every way.

Quentin Pereira (Midfielder)

So unremarkable that I can’t remember a single thing about him. Supposedly signed for two years, quietly released after one.

Christopher Mbamba (Winger)

Nowhere near League One standard. Spent most of his minutes looking completely lost. Came millimetres from scoring a winner away at Bradford on opening day. That was his Vale moment.

Kiko (Defender)

Up‑and‑down left‑back, very busy, not much end product. Probably would have been fine for League Two. Great name for a footballer. A name that deserved better.

Gezim Shalaj (Midfielder)

I’ve been racking my brains and have come up with nothing. Nada. Zip. Name rings a bell. That’s about it.

Calvin Mac‑Intosh (Defender)

Dreadful. Not a footballer. Gone in January.

Sebastien Amoros (Midfielder)

From Monaco. Limited opportunities, limited ability, and completely frozen out by Brown. Probably could have made it as a male model.

Anthony de Freitas (Midfielder)

Busy, rapid, but always got himself in a muddle in the final third. Worked incredibly hard and people really wanted him to succeed. I wanted him to succeed. Survived into 17/18 before leaving in January. A “streets will remember” player.

Paulo Tavares (Midfielder, GOAT)

The great enigma. Everything except actual ability. Started well – nobody can deny that. As he declined, so did our league position. Frozen out by Brown. Gone by summer. Burslem mourned.

Rigino “Reggie” Cicilia (Striker)

Where do you start? A striker unable to jump – watching him attempt it was performance art. Ungainly, comical, unforgettable. Four league goals, though – which is four more than some this season. Coventry away was his Sistine Chapel, no-one who witnessed that performance will ever forget it. A cult icon.

And onto the season…

We opened with a 0–0 draw away at Bradford – and honestly, who wouldn’t have taken that? We even came within a whisker of stealing all three points: Mbamba and his almost moment, stretching desperately at the death, just millimetres away from instant‑hero status.

What followed was a surprisingly bright spell. We spent the next 14 games living in the top ten, with a record of: played 15, won 6, drawn 4, lost 5. That run included a  trip to Sheffield United – a 4–0 battering despite the referee seemingly doing everything he could to keep us in it, chalking off about 21 Sheff Utd goals in the process. On the 9th October we were sitting fourth after an away win at MK Dons. How crazy was that?

Our next league win wouldn’t come until 12th November, when we beat Fleetwood 2–1 at Vale Park to climb back to sixth. From there, though, the decline was steep and could not be arrested.

After a home defeat to Walsall on Boxing Day, Bruno resigned. We were 17th. Michael Brown was appointed caretaker on the spot. What had been a bad situation quickly became a full on shit-show. To be fair, we also lost our three best players: Alex Jones returned to Birmingham City, Jak Alnwick was sold to Rangers, and Anthony Grant went to Peterborough.

The players who came in simply didn’t match that level of quality. Whatever happened to the money from the sales of Alnwick and Grant? I don’t think Smurf ever answered that question.

Arrivals included Chris Eagles (how we convinced ourselves he might sprinkle a bit of stardust…), Callum Guy, Tyler Walker, Scott Tanser, Olamide Shodipo, Axel Prohouly, Danny Pugh and Leo Fasan. Then came the March additions: Deniz Mehmet and Andre Bikey (carrying enough timber to start a small forest fire, and playing in what looked like a 5XL shirt straight from the Club Shop. Running was not on the agenda for Andre).

Unsurprisingly, the slump continued.

And the final run-in? We lost five of the final seven games and failed to score in six of them. Eagles gave us hope with that winner at Walsall, and we came so close to saving the season on the final day at Fleetwood. We ultimately finished 21st, a single point behind Gillingham and safety.

For all its chaos, though, that season gifted us something priceless: a rag‑tag gallery of cult heroes we’ll be talking about for years. Reggie pirouetting beneath crosses he had no intention of winning; Tavares gliding through games like a man permanently convinced he was starring in his own biopic; de Freitas sprinting into blind alleys with valiant enthusiasm; Knops embodying quiet class until fate intervened. Even the ones who barely touched the ball left fingerprints on the memory simply by existing in that surreal, mismatched squad. And yes, it got bad – spectacularly bad. The collapse was total, the January churn catastrophic, and the final run‑in was the kind of slow‑motion train crash you can’t look away from, no matter how hard you try.

But somehow, impossibly, amid the calamity and continental confusion, it still amounted to a more coherent, more spirited, more alive season than the one we’re trudging through now. A disaster, yes – but at least it was a disaster with personality.

A season that, for all its sins, reminds us how gloriously, stupidly entertaining Vale can be when it completely loses the plot.