Our FA Cup journey begins this Saturday, a competition which, once upon a time, was the most glorious thing in the whole world. It really was. Vale didn’t treat me to too many FA Cup memories as a kid, I had to wait until I was 17 and the visit of Spurs in January 1988 to truly understand how the FA Cup could give you something that went way beyond mere joy. It wasn’t just excitement or happiness on that day, listen, when that final whistle blew, my head completely detonated. I was on another planet entirely. One enormous, life-affirming release of everything right and just in the world. An incredible experience. Ray Walker’s exquisite 25-yarder, outside of the right foot – the technique is utterly sublime – arcing gracefully into the top corner, is the goal we see over and over again, however, for me, it’s Sproey’s piledriver from three yards out, amidst a goalmouth scramble, that’s the better finish. I will die on that hill.

As a kid, I remember Blyth Spartan’s famous run in the 77/78 season, it certainly touched us all in Stoke-on-Trent. I remember Clive Walker scoring a couple as Chelsea beat Liverpool 4-2, for a few weeks afterwards he was supposed to be the next big thing. He wasn’t. I remember John Wile of WBA, blood streaming down his face after a clash of heads against Ipswich. I remember Arsenal beating Man Utd in the 1979 Final, the final five minutes ascending into the most astonishing, breathless chaos I had ever seen, I remember thinking, that this is how every football game should end.

I remember Willie Young chopping down teenage Paul Allen in 1980; he just couldn’t be arsed to chase after him. I remember Ricky Villa mugging off the Man City defence and Joe Corrigan in 1981. I remember spectacular diving headers, they were absolute works of art – when did they go out of fashion? And, of course, I remember Enfield beating Vale three-nil in a third round replay, Steve Cherry and his infamous clown feet ‘air’ kick, a moment of slapstick comedy that became permanently lodged into my brain.

And those kits! Oh my fucking god, I was obsessed with football kits back then, studying every detail from photo’s in Shoot! Magazine. Ian Wallace of Coventry City, a mass of frizzy ginger hair and that brown away strip. Fucking hell, it was magnificent. Admiral, Adidas, Bukta, all of them producing perfection. All kits seemed to have a personality of their own, you knew exactly who was who, every club possessed something that felt unique and unmistakeable. The mid-1970s to the mid-1980s remains the golden age of football kits for me, every club has an absolute classic from that period.

Of course these are all just fragments now, snapshots from a competition that held me completely spellbound in wide-eyed reverence as a young lad, despite Vale’s general reluctance to ever bother getting past the second round. These days, well, I can’t actually remember the last time I actually bothered watching the Final. I imagine either Man City or Arsenal are the current holders. Has the magic disappeared, or is it because I just got older? Whenever Vale go on a cup adventure it naturally gets my heart fluttering, but the awe and wonder of the FA Cup, like Christmas, remains lost somewhere in my childhood.

Last season, in the most gloriously ridiculous circumstances imaginable, we came closer than we ever have in my lifetime to winning the FA Cup, the journey finally ending tragically at Stamford Bridge in the Quarter-Finals with a hideous seven-nil spanking. The old spirit of the FA Cup had worked its magic on Vale Park for the earlier rounds, the pitch went 70s old-school, morphing into a primordial swamp intent on dragging everyone down into our underworld of abandoned mine shafts, biscuit tins full of cash, and the lingering ghost of Bill Bell. Non-league dreamers, Championship hopefuls, and Premier League aristocrats all dispatched beneath the sludge. And because all great fairy tales require an unlikely hero, ours arrived in the form of Ben Waine, carrying us all along on a wave of delirious optimism. “Get on board the Waine Train” became our battle cry, something we haven’t heard at all this season, and in all likelihood, never will again.

So, where are we right now? What’s going on? After a spirit-crushing start to the season, maybe, just maybe the tide has begun to turn. Before we kicked off against Rochdale we’d managed just six goals in eleven league games, and then suddenly, without warning, we’re three-nil up in twenty-two minutes, playing some dazzling football. It was some of the most scintillating stuff I’ve seen at Vale Park in years, seriously, wave after wave of attack rolled towards the Hamil, and at the heart of it all Onel and George Hall, both playing as though they had stolen fire from the gods. They were rampant.

Yes, Saturday was a welcome surprise, I had hoped, believed, and done everything I could to manifest a three-nil win beforehand but there’s always a nagging doubt with these things, my karma bank is not always in credit, and sometimes I wonder if I demand too much. Anyway, surely it can only be a sign of better days to come. The second half drifted somewhat, ageing legs and fragile legs wrapped up in cotton wool and replaced, but I’ve no complaints about that, three points gained – even if it wasn’t the three-nil I had formally requested – and taking into account our two games in hand, the league table is looking far less wretched.

The No. 9 conundrum, however, remains unsolved. Watters and Lynch continue to frustrate, neither of them quite where they need to be at this moment in time. But we all know how football works, we all know if we believe hard enough then something good has to happen. If we will it with sufficient conviction, if we all stare heroically into the middle distance and imagine goals into existence, one of them, maybe even both of them, will start scoring. And it is within our gift to make that happen. We mustn’t ever doubt it. All we have to do is start believing with unreasonable intensity.

And there’s another way of looking at this; If Watters and Lynch are able to lure defenders out of position, bend those lines into unfamiliar shapes, create the space for Hernandez, George Hall, Figueroa, our artists and opportunists, to wreak havoc, then they are absolutely contributing to the cause, even if they’re not doing a great deal with the ball. A few goals from both of them would certainly help their respective causes, though.

And I need to stop going on about the sale of Jayden Stockley, I just need to grow up and let it go. Grief, after all, is supposed to have stages. It’s not that easy though, I like the idea of using it as a stick to beat Jon Brady with on a daily basis, never stopping until we reach the point where the Sun finally swallows the Earth and turns us all to dust. One must find purpose where one can I suppose, regardless of how childish it is. But I’ll let that tension play out for now, leave it at an occasional mutter now and again.

Anyway, Scunthorpe United visit Vale Park in the First Round Proper on Saturday. What can I tell you about the current Scunthorpe team? Very little. They’ve existed in non-league football for the past couple of seasons, I think. Beyond that, my research has been deliberately non-existent. I could Google their squad I suppose, learn about their form and their key players. But where’s the romance in that? No, the FA Cup should retain some mystery. Scunthorpe will arrive as a football team emerging from the mist. They will have players. Some of those players might be quite good. And right now, that’s more than enough for me to know.

The FA Cup. On the one hand I just cannot get excited about it, on the other I desperately want us to at least reach the third round. You never know what might be lurking around the corner, and that’s the point. That’s the beauty of it. That’s the magic. Get through to the third round and suddenly the horizon opens up. A big awayday, a Premier League Goliath under the lights at Vale Park, something extraordinary that makes it all worthwhile. Given our exploits last season we’re probably due grave disappointment.

This game itself leaves me cold, no offence to Scunthorpe; but the possibilities of what might follow burn brightly, and I’m always hopelessly, relentlessly, captivated by the possibilities.

Up the Vale!