Stoke-on-Trent
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Port Vale: Searching For Satori – Part one
Friday 12 September 2025 Digs booked. Full tank of diesel. Five thirty AM, leaving Burslem, saying goodbye to Lemmy and the Angel, Henry Doulton, the streets of Arnold Bennett – all now just ghosts in the rearview, heading towards Exeter,… Continue reading
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Port Vale 2-3 Leyton Orient: We Find Meaning In Our Suffering
Saturday 6 September 2025 Vale Park, Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent When it arrived, the kill was swift and surgical. Ninety minutes plus five. A careless surrender on the halfway line, a blur of movement — run, pass, pass, goal. It was not… Continue reading
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Port Vale and The Vertu Trophy: Is This All There Is?
The evening will arrive not with fanfare, but with a kind of soft indifference. A Tuesday, perhaps. Or a Wednesday. The days blur. The floodlights blink themselves awake, casting long shadows across the emptying car parks and the slow shuffle… Continue reading
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Port Vale: Here Comes Our Man
The transfer window’s shut. Slammed like a cell door. Locked, bolted, and forgotten. Not that it matters. We were crying out for a striker, one with experience, who knows what’s going on and what needs doing. One who knows those… Continue reading
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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
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Port Vale 0-1 Doncaster Rovers: Our Grim Smile
Saturday 23 August 2025, Vale Park, Burslem. Ah, there it is. That look on the faces on those adventurers from Doncaster on reaching the mother town. It tells us everything we need to know. The dawning realisation that they do… Continue reading
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Lorent Tolaj – The Man Who Ran Towards The Void
The rumours are true. All bets are off. Lorent Tolaj, that pony-tailed Swiss enigma whose boots seemed to echo with the weight of purpose, has joined Plymouth Argyle. The brutal beauty of Stoke-on-Trent swapped for Devon. Tolaj wasn’t just a… Continue reading
tales from the paddock 