Port Vale. It’s our drug, our beautiful madness, the ache in our bones and the fire in our chests. It’s oatcakes at dawn and the rattle of the 07:58 Stoke-on-Trent to London Euston. The clink of the turnstile, the smell of beer and pies, the cracked pavements of Burslem, eyes wide and hearts thumping like drums in the night, it’s the chant that starts with one voice and swells like a hymn, the last-minute winner, the floodlights slicing through fog, the walk back to the pub with your heart full and your voice gone.

We don’t want the cure, never wanted it, not once, we want the roar and the silence and the joy and the suffering of the terraces, because in this delirium we are alive, we are together, we are Vale.