football
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In The Tracks Between Us (Awaydays and the National Rail Network)
I’ve never boarded the official supporters’ coach. I just can’t do it. I cannot open that door. And to be absolutely clear, this isn’t a dig at fellow Vale fans – far from it – and it’s certainly not about… Continue reading
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Port Vale: Going Down Fighting and the FA Cup Fever Dream
There is definitely something happening, right? You can feel it under the skin now – a stubbornness, a resilience, a refusal to lie down that simply didn’t exist a few weeks ago. There’s fight again. There’s spirit again. There’s belief… Continue reading
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Port Vale And The Many Doors Out Of Here
The Escape From Reality There comes a point where reality feels like a pair of hands around the throat. Not tight enough to kill you – just firm enough to remind you who’s in charge. Bills, headlines, work, the slow… Continue reading
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The Wilful Disintegration of Port Vale FC
Has there ever been a group of footballers less interested in doing their job than the ones we watched in that second half at Stevenage? They’ve checked out. Utterly. No interest in achieving anything, no urgency, no pride. Just a… Continue reading
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Continental Drift: Port Vale’s European Experiment, 2016/17
The 2016/17 season was, for so many reasons, an astonishing one for Vale. Not quite on the level of the Jim Gannon Experience™ – nothing short of an exorcism could match that – but still deeply shambolic in its own… Continue reading
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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
tales from the paddock 