One of the highlights of our Turmoil Week series of posts back in January was Tom Bourne’s analysis of the financial shenanigans at Port Vale, although Valiants fans will have been little cheered. Since then, events at Vale Park have become yet more labyrinthine and uncertainty remains ahead of Barnet’s visit tomorrow afternoon. The ending was swift, predictable, painful, and yet all too avoidable. As gloomily predicted in these pages at the turn of the year, the club’s catastrophic mismanagement had only one obvious and dismal conclusion. Vale’s extricable slide into administration was finally confirmed on the 9th March 2012….
All posts tagged Port Vale
Unexpected Rivalries 2: Shrewsbury, Port Vale and Wrexham
After Kerry Andrew opened our Unexpected Rivalries series back in March, we are delighted to welcome back Andrew Harding, deviser of an eponymous blog and a man we have invited to muse on those clubs likely to get the goat of the average Shrew. True, Hereford remain the most indelible foe, but in the spirit of the series, Andrew, who can be followed on Twitter here, spreads the net wider, clearly spoiling for disagreement. Opposition goading is part of the whole spectacle of football. They might well have won more trophies and have a much greater fanbase than you but as far as…
From SFL to Football League
Our latest scouting report from outside the Football League comes from Craig Telfer, whose website Who the hell is Akabusi? documents the thrills and spills of supporting Scottish Second Division side Stenhousemuir FC. Here, Craig widens his brief to consider those SFL players potentially capable of doing a job in England’s equivalent divisions. The general perception of Scottish football, both home and abroad, is that the game is at its lowest ebb. The administration of Rangers FC – officially the world’s most successful club side and often described as a pillar of Scottish society – has magnified the problems surrounding…
Turmoil Week: Port Vale
Following SJ Maskell’s torrid Pompey prologue of yesterday, the spotlight now falls on a second club beginning with P: the Valiants from Burslem in Staffordshire and a business that has fallen on decidedly hard times after punching above its weight for much of the nineties. We last heard from Tom Bourne in June; his coruscating post casting a light on troubling events at Vale Park. Now, he brings the story up to date - and it ain’t pretty reading. Who said following a football club was easy? Summarising Vale’s often traumatic 2010-11 season in these pages back in June, I signed…
The Thursday Preview: Oxford Vs Port Vale
With year-end targets at work biting, it’s an express preview this week based predominantly on recent first-hand impressions rather than diligent research. Indeed, along with the other original unfortunate (not to mention a further couple) I made the trip to the Kassam on Tuesday to see a youthful Plymouth side soundly beaten by their hosts. It was a depressing event; besides being a pain to get to, many will appreciate that the stadium is about as spiritless as they come and, perched a distance away from home supporters at the far side of the North Stand, I did start to…
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