Of course they’re right, those merchants of doom. Vale’s prophets of pessimism. Before a ball had even been kicked, they knew. They could see calamity gathering on the horizon, steaming towards us like an express train with no brakes. They told us that this season will be an absolute shitshow. And so far they’ve been spot on. They get to utter life’s most irresistible phrase: “I knew this would happen.” They probably consider themselves to be realists, and they’d be right about that too.

And yes, of course they were right about Saturday. Of course a disjointed, weirdly dysfunctional Vale would trudge away from Salford with nothing. I turned up with nothing more than blind optimism and a stubborn refusal to engage with reality. To be fair, that’s pretty much my approach to life. It’s an appalling strategy, objectively speaking, but I remain firmly committed to it.

And what of us dreamers? What of those souls adrift above the world, intoxicated by possibilities, blind to realities, and forever reaching for stars that were never ours to touch?

Look, it’s not that I don’t have concerns about Brady and what he’s doing, or about the players, or about our hierarchy and what they’re not doing. I do. Deep down I know that everything is wrong. It’s just that, even with the most dire Vale sides imaginable, I’ve always been able to retreat into the same ridiculously naïve daydreams. In my head we’re never crumbling to soul-destroying defeats. We’re battering teams, properly humiliating them. Rubbing their noses right in it. Now, that’s understandable when you’re seven or eight years old, kicking a ball against a wall and imagining yourself lifting trophies. It’s a little less defensible when you’re in your fifties, with a wife and two grown-up children.

On Friday evening, just after tea, I’d settled on a nice little heart-warming 4-1 victory at Salford. Something to kick-start our season. A statement of intent. Salford would take an early lead, we would respond with absolute havoc. Carnage. Oli Lynch leading the fight-back, helping himself to a brace, Dempsey getting in on the act, revealing his penalty area prowess in some style, George Hall proving us all wrong with his energy and pinpoint crossing (he did do a lot of running around to be fair), Hernandez wrapping things up with an audacious volley from the edge of the box. Reality had a different tale to tell. We were woeful and we lost. I can’t talk about the goal, other than their lad has kicked it way too hard and the ref has done fuck all about it. Surely the footballing gods could have glanced down and seen that we have already suffered enough?

Do I ever learn anything from this? No. Not a single thing.

Now, look yer, I don’t believe in Santa Claus or owt like that. I possess at least a working understanding of the adult world. I do understand that we’ve gone into the season with a squad full of shortcomings. But somewhere deep down, the little boy who used to turn football matches into elaborate works of fiction is still alive and well. Every August he grabs the steering wheel, and every August I let him.

And maybe there lies the real difference between us dreamers and those merchants of doom. They think football is about prediction, whereas we, the dreamers, think it’s about possibility. The pessimists arm themselves against heartbreak. There is a coping mechanism at play here. They lower expectations, construct emotional barricades and prepare for the worst so that when disaster arrives it doesn’t hurt quite as much. And there is a logic to this. If you expect nothing, you can never be truly disappointed.

But surely Vale was never supposed to be an exercise in risk management? The whole thing is irrational from start to finish. Grown adults travel hundreds of miles, spend small fortunes, and willingly hand over vast portions of their emotional wellbeing to events entirely beyond their control. If we’re looking for sensible behaviour, we’ve already taken a wrong turn somewhere. Supporting Vale is irrational by its very nature. And if supporting Vale is irrational, as we’ve all just agreed it is, then why not embrace the most irrational part of it all? Why not believe?

There is no logic to belief, it never has any evidence to back itself up. But the alternative seems just so joyless. And I can’t live like that. I know people who can dissect tactics with forensic precision, identify every flaw in the squad (not too difficult a task at the moment, don’t big yourselves up), and predict exactly where things are heading. More often than not, they’re right. Irritatingly right. But I’ve always wondered what they actually gain from arriving at disappointment five weeks before everyone else. The destination remains exactly the same. All they’ve really achieved is extending their stay there, like its the Hotel California or something.

The dreamers, meanwhile, well we get to spend those weeks somewhere altogether different. And it isn’t easy, you know. Do people think this stuff just happens? It takes commitment to construct entire worlds out of hope, particularly with a Vale side this desperately bad. Hours spent lovingly assembling castles in the air with no foundation whatsoever. It is difficult, often exhausting work, being this gloriously, magnificently unreasonable, and I don’t think that’s ever appreciated enough.

The dreamers get to imagine promotion races, cup runs and glorious, unforgettable away-day victories. We get to believe that Max Watters, or the new lad on loan from Liverpool, will solve our goalscoring problems. That Jasper Moon will tighten up that back line. That we’ll get 40 league games out of George Byers this season. That George Hall will tear League Two limb from limb. We, the dreamers, inhabit a parallel universe where possibility still exists. Where every new signing might be the answer to everything.

And yes, eventually reality catches up, of course. It always does. The reality of our piss-poor summer transfer activity. The reality that we are winless from the opening five league games. The reality of being rooted firmly to the foot of League Two. That Jayden Stockley decision looking worse every time Wimbledon play. Grand illusions don’t slip away quietly, they die loud, ugly deaths in full public view. 

But so what? Just because a dream ends doesn’t mean it wasn’t worth having. We got to feel the anticipation, the excitement, the delicious absurdity of imagining something wonderful around the corner. And what if we do turn a corner, starting with Exeter this Saturday? What if we win the next five league games? What if everything suddenly, and inexplicably, clicks? These things can happen.

And let’s not forget, there are, of course, those incredible moments when reality matches our dreams. Tottenham in 88. The ball getting stuck in the mud in 92. Ian Bogie and Everton in 96. That McKirdy penalty in 2022. These things happened.

That’s why us dreamers never learn. Life gives us far too much reality already. The world is forever instructing us to be sensible, to be measured, to be realistic, endlessly explaining why things won’t work. But none of that holds any interest for us dreamers, so we have to push back against it. Life has to be worth living, right? And for a few precious days each week, before the whistle blows and reality comes barging back in, we’re free to believe. Free to believe that this time things will be different. That Vale will give us life-affirming happiness and joy.

And look, I can’t believe that a single Vale fan genuinely enjoys seeing Vale lose. Not one. What the merchants of doom enjoy is the validation that accompanies it. The sense that their experience counts for something, that they have watched enough Vale, suffered enough defeats and survived enough false promises to recognise the warning signs before everyone else. That they understand Vale much more deeply than those who bring nothing but wild optimism to the party.

Us dreamers have our own defence mechanism. We build our shelters elsewhere. We understand the risks every bit as well, but choose hope anyway. We know the odds and we know our history. We know how many times we’ve stood and watched the same story unfold. We continue to believe because belief is the thing that makes watching Vale worthwhile in the first place.

The merchants of doom seek security in being right. The dreamers seek survival in believing things can get better. Both are trying to shield themselves from the same pain. One prepares for disaster; the other just simply refuses to live there until it arrives.

For both parties it’s a way of protecting a heart that Vale has broken too many times before.

Beneath the gloomy forecasts and fatalistic declarations of the doom merchant there’s a Vale fan who cares so deeply that expecting failure has become their preferred method of survival. And when the disaster they predicted finally arrives, as football so often ensures it does, they are granted one small consolation. In a game where supporters control almost nothing, they can at least say they saw it coming.

Me, I’ve always lived with my head in the clouds and that will never change. That’s just my own method of survival. The merchants of doom may claim wisdom when the clouds finally break, but I’d much rather endure the rain than miss the occasional glimpse of sunshine.