league-one
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Port Vale: The Final Roll of the Dice
The transfer window has slammed shut. This is it. This is this. So, in comes Andre Gray (Andre fucking Gray! I know, it’s crackers!), two young lads from Everton, the lad from Workington whom Brady worked with at Northampton and,… 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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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 and The Return Of 4-4-2
It went massively out of style, didn’t it? One minute 4‑4‑2 was the backbone of British football, the formation you could sketch on a beer mat over a few pints on a Friday night, the next minute it was treated… Continue reading
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Bradford City Vs Port Vale: It’s Frothy, Man!
Finally, he’s gone. For me – and for a lot of Valiants – it’s five weeks too late. That shambles at home to Plymouth was the moment to act. Three wins from twenty‑one gigs is abysmal, a sad, sorry tale,… 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 0-1 Peterborough Utd: Relegation By Design
I don’t get it. What’s the endgame here? What possible logic leads the owner of a football club to stare down the barrel of relegation and simply… shrug? Do absolutely nothing? Before the new year has even bothered to dawn,… 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
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Port Vale 0-0 Wycombe Wanderers: The Long Road To League 2
Our relentless march toward the Fourth Division continues, despite scraping a point from Saturday’s clash with Wycombe. The adventurous play to win, cautious play not to lose. We chose caution. Fortunately for us, so did Wycombe —a surprise, really, because… Continue reading
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Port Vale 0-3 Stockport County: No Shelter from the Storm
I thought the cold light of day might wash it clean, give me perspective, a little clarity. It didn’t. It’s still there, raw and ugly. That performance was a surrender, a folding of cardboard in the rain, limp and shapeless.… Continue reading
tales from the paddock 