the grim smile of the five towns
-
Wigan Athletic 1-0 Port Vale: We’re Grim Up North
Let’s start with the positives. Or the positive. I could only find one. Marvin Johnson. For the short time he was on the pitch he looked a cut above anyone else we have seen at wing-back this season, I’m talking… Continue reading
-
Barnsley 0-2 Port Vale: Exorcising Ghosts
Saturday 27 September 2025, 3pm. Oakwell Stadium, Barnsley. We rolled into Oakwell like pilgrims chasing absolution, minds heavy with the weight of August 5th, 2023 — opening day, opening wound. The sun was high but the memory low, seven goals… Continue reading
-
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 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
-
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
tales from the paddock 