football
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Paulo Tavares, Cognitive Dissonance, and Port Vale FC
I’d like to pull on your coat for a minute and tell you a story. It’s about Cognitive Dissonance and Confirmation Bias – those psychological mechanisms that allow us to overlook reality and follow our own narrative. It’s about those… Continue reading
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¡Bienvenido, Compañero Hernández!
Look at us. We’ve dipped into the global talent pool and come up clutch. Onel Hernández doesn’t just arrive from the long, unromantic road that is Charlton, Norwich, Middlesbrough and Birmingham, no, Hernández arrives with the unmistakable imprint of Cuba… Continue reading
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Where the Mind Rests: Football, Sanctuary, and Vale Park
What does Vale Park mean to you? Every time I see a photo of the ground from the 1970s, I’m instantly taken back to my childhood and, more specifically, to my football experience of that era – walking down Dolly’s… Continue reading
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Port Vale 1-3 Exeter City: After the Iceberg
I stayed to the bitter end. I always do. It’s the Final Act that fascinates me – the moments after the whistle, when the curtain drops on a dismal performance and everyone has to live with what’s just happened. That… Continue reading
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150 Years of Port Vale: A Tale from the Paddock
One hundred and fifty years ago Port Vale Football Club came into being. It has given us joy and beauty, pain and ugliness in equal measure – and we wouldn’t want it any other way. Life is always worth living… Continue reading
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Become the Beast: Jon Brady and the Machiavellian Playbook
Safety sits eleven points above us – and it’s a huge, jagged mountain to climb. And Jon Brady? He’s the man with his boots on, head down, ready to scale it. Ready to lead the way. Twentieth place in League… Continue reading
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Port Vale: Ball Number Four
Tonight the balls will rattle in the bowl and the ghosts of giant-killings will lean in close, because the FA Cup 4th round draw is upon us and Vale are still breathing. Skin in the game, knuckles scraped, after a… Continue reading
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Huddersfield Town 5-0 Port Vale: How Soon Is Now?
I don’t bother with his post‑match interviews anymore. There’s never an apology, never a hint of responsibility, never even the faintest flicker of accountability for this never‑ending horror show. Just more of the same endless nothingness. He doesn’t even look… Continue reading
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Port Vale Vs Peterborough United: All or Nothing
Peterborough Town roll into town on Saturday, fellow strugglers, albeit beginning to climb out of the dirty relegation pond, and we need to win. We absolutely need to win. And it does not matter how we do that. Because playing… Continue reading
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A Little Trip Back to December 2023
Port Vale 3-2 Wigan Athletic. Saturday 16 December 2023, Vale Park. Edge-of-your-seat stuff. Ethan Chislett with a hat-trick, two-nil up at half-time, Wigan clawing it back to a Desmond in the second half, before Chizzy found the winner. That result… Continue reading
tales from the paddock 