Carabao Cup
-
Port Vale 0-2 Arsenal: Madri, Titanic and the road to Vale Park
Wednesday 24 September 2025. 5pm and the Bulls Head is humming, a low jazz of clinking pint glasses and belly-laughs, three hours deep in Titanic Ale and the kind of pre-match buzz that fills the soul with joy. St. John’s… Continue reading
-
Port Vale 0-2 Arsenal: A Tale Of Salt And Steel
Vale Park, Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent. 3rd Round, Carabao Cup. Wednesday 24 September, 2025. 8PM kick-off. We were beaten, yes — 2-0 by a far superior Arsenal side. It was like steering a battered trawler into the path of a gleaming frigate… Continue reading
-
Port Vale vs Arsenal: Breakfast And A Morning Stroll
Wednesday 24 September 2025, 08:30. The morning began, as mornings ought, with a ceremony of nourishment both modest and magnificent. An omelette, golden and obedient, enfolded within its curving embrace a portion of smoked haddock – firm, fragrant ,and faintly… Continue reading
-
Port Vale 2-1 Mansfield Town: The Reprieve
Saturday 20 September 2025, 3pm. Vale Park, Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent. Ninety-five minutes gone and the world hangs on a whistle, the ref a god with a plastic trinket, Ronan Curtis standing there like a man on the edge of a dream… Continue reading
-
The Best Of All Possible Draws! Port Vale V Arsenal
The mechanics of the Carabao Cup draw, like the workings of the universe, are not for mortal minds to comprehend. Balls were drawn from a jar with all the solemnity of a village fête tombola. And lo! The first name… Continue reading
tales from the paddock 