Magic of Port Vale is finding the sublime amid desperation

It is 14 January 1998. I am 10 years old, and I am standing with my mother in our front garden in Stoke on Trent. We are listening to the noise emanating from Vale Park, barely three miles away, as Port Vale play their biggest match in decades: the third round of the FA Cup.

The talent on the pitch that night was superlative: Ian Wright, Dennis Bergkamp, Patrick Vieira, David Seaman. Unfortunately, all of it belonged to Arsenal. Yet my mother and I had been lured out into the winter cold by the sound of the howls of Vale fans that reached our home when Wayne Corden spectacularly equalised in the 112th minute, bringing the score to 1-1 and forcing the Gunners to a penalty shootout.

From our spot on the lawn, we trained our ears in the direction of the ground to follow what happened next. The first cheers that washed across the valley told us Arsenal had missed their first penalty. Magic. Almost immediately after, more screams of joy. We could hardly believe it, but Port Vale, a lowly second-tier team, were 1-0 up in a shootout against a side that had seemed all but invincible. By measuring out the intervals between the screams and the silences that followed as the shootout unfolded, my mother and I deduced that, going into the fifth round of penalties, Port Vale and Arsenal were level at 3-3.

Then, a chilling quiet told us Arsenal had nailed their last shot. We waited for the scream that would tell us the Valiants had done the same. But there was only more silence. Allen Tankard had skied it. Port Vale were out of the FA Cup, and Arsenal would go on to win the domestic double.

Little did I know it at the time, but that was as good as things would ever get for my club. In the years since, we have battled relegation after relegation, we have gone into administration, we have lost fans, lost money, become a left-behind team in a left-behind town. Arsenal, I hear, are doing quite well.

That was until 8 March, when Port Vale, sitting squarely at the bottom of League One, having barely won a match since Christmas and facing almost certain relegation once again, somehow found it within themselves to knock Sunderland, 57 places ahead of us, out of the 2026 FA Cup. This time, as I fell to my knees in my living room in Paris, the howls were all mine.

And now another shot at glory awaits. On Saturday, Port Vale will meet Chelsea in their first Cup quarter-final since 1954, far surpassing my dreams of 1998.

In their inglorious 150-year history, Port Vale have always been a team who find a way to extract moments of the sublime in the most desperate of circumstances. Yes, we are the team that have played the most seasons in the Football League without ever having played in the top tier of English football. Yes, we are permanently in the shadow of the much wealthier Stoke City. But this is a club who went into the 2012-13 season with no owners, no home kit, unable to manage their own ground, and somehow got themselves promoted anyway. In 2023-24, we reached the quarter-finals of the Carabao Cup and got relegated to League Two.

If you’re a Vale fan, it’s not the hope that kills you, it’s the hope that keeps you alive. And if supporting Port Vale has at times been a trial, in recent years our off-pitch transformation has given fans real reason to be proud.

During our darkest days, I used to dream that a buyout from some oligarch, billionaire or celebrity would somehow turn Vale’s fortunes around. Now I know there’s a better way. In 2019, when local businesswoman, Carol Shanahan, and her husband, Kevin, bought the club, they were facing the prospect of being relegated to non-League football. As chair, Shanahan has since presided over a quiet revolution.

It goes without saying that the Shanahans didn’t buy Port Vale for the glory. They bought it to revitalise a part of the country that has been devastated by austerity and is badly in need of support the government will not provide – researchers from Staffordshire University reported last year that Stoke-on-Trent was experiencing a “poverty crisis”, with more than a third of children living in low-income homes.

During lockdown in 2020, the club provided 375,000 meals around the city. Vale Park, a ground that never felt welcoming to me as a young girl, now provides ante-natal care to women in the community, as well as mental health services, clothes and food banks, and college courses. The foundation runs a football side for bereaved dads.

Having received an OBE and the Freedom of Stoke-on-Trent for her efforts, Shanahan has also snatched the greatest prize of all for Port Vale: our most famous fan, Robbie Williams, has returned to the fold as club president.

In the quarter-century since I left Stoke, I have never met another Port Vale fan in person (Robbie, if you’re reading this…). But on Easter weekend, I know the vast majority of English football fans will be with us.

Win or lose – and call me crazy, but I’m not prepared to assume we will lose – I wouldn’t switch Port Vale for a Premier League side for all the pottery in Stoke.

And if you think about it, beating Chelsea and getting relegated in the same season might just be the most Port Vale thing to ever happen. They call it the magic of the FA Cup. I say it’s the magic of Port Vale.

Photograph by Lewis Storey/Getty Images