vale-park
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2025/26 Squad Review Part One: Keepers, Defenders, Wing-backs
Here we go then. No point pretending we need to wait until the final whistle of the season because, honestly, we’ve seen more than enough by now. Everyone’s had their chance, plenty of minutes on the pitch, plenty of time… Continue reading
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Port Vale and the Art of Graceful Relegation
Three league games since the FA Cup heroics against Sunderland – was that really only ten days ago? – and somehow we’ve squeezed just one point from nine. One point. Even the most devoted optimist, the last believer clinging to… Continue reading
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There Is A Light That Never Goes Out
The board goes up – six minutes. Six. Added. Minutes. And I swear something inside me just snaps like an old elastic band that’s been left in the sun too long. I’m done. Absolutely shredded. Head gone, legs gone, soul… 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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Acceptance, Inner Peace & The Joy Of A 96th Minute Equaliser
There’s nothing quite like a 96th‑minute equaliser to make the soul tremble with joy. And that noise that came from the Bycars as Martin Sherif wheeled away – that deafening silence from those travellers from Reading – music to my… 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: The Art of Stepping Away (And Finding Your Way Back Again)
There comes a moment in every long-term relationship (you know the sort, those messy, life-dented ones) where you look across the room at the person you love and think, “I need a bit of space.” Not doors slammed, boxes packed.… Continue reading
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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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The Last Cry of ‘Derek I’m Gutted!!!’?
There’s a special kind of magic going on in a fanzine, and it’s a magic stitched together with pritt-stick, scissors, tippex, photocopiers, late nights and DIY stubbornness. For 26 years, Derek I’m Gutted!!! has been that magic in print for… 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
tales from the paddock 