The Wonder of You: Victory and relief at last for Port Vale fans

When Norman Smurthwaite sent a text on Monday to say all was good and that the takeover of Port Vale would be completed the following day I felt an enormous sense of relief.

Yesterday marked the end of a very long and, at times, incredibly dark road for Port Vale, its staff and its long-suffering supporters.

For me, personally, the takeover means I can now step down from the Supporters’ Club (SC) committee knowing that we have achieved what we set out to achieve.

The self-interested few who were running Port Vale into the ground 12 months ago are history and will very soon be hearing from the liquidators of the old Valiant 2001.

Crucially, Port Vale is out of administration and under new ownership.

I’m proud to say that during the last 12 months the SC has grown in membership from 200 to more than 1,600.

And, after 11 years, the Sproson Statue is finally in-situ and looks magnificent.

It is about 18 months ago that I stumbled from the EGM, shell-shocked that the will of the vast majority of ordinary shareholders in Port Vale had been denied.

Hopefully, I’ve kept a promise to a supporter called Caroline who was standing outside on that day.

Fast forward a few months – December 1, 2011, to be precise. That’s when the SC committee members had their first spectacular falling out with Perry Deakin and Peter Miller.

What began as a cordial discussion descended into a slanging match when Messrs Miller and Deakin were presented with evidence of the issuing of half a million pounds worth nil paid shares.

Then they locked us out of Tommy Cheadle’s. The gloves were off.

What followed was several months of digging, arranging meetings, seeking legal advice and protests.

We exposed the fact the Blue Sky deal was dead and unearthed the sorry saga of the re-mortgaging of the club and the Gibraltar loan.

We even went as far as to create an interim board in preparation for a second EGM which never happened.

Of course, the SC was able to draw on a reservoir of goodwill formed by years of unhappiness and unrest.

It was able to bring together groups like North London Valiants, Black and Gold and the Starve ’Em Out campaign under one umbrella.

Let’s never forget it was these people who started the fight. They laid the foundations for change.

Ultimately, together, these groups and the SC were to prove an irresistible force – one which put paid to the likes of Miller and Deakin, Mike Lloyd and Glenn Oliver.

When the club went into administration earlier this year there was absolutely no guarantee that Port Vale would survive.

But thanks to the city council we were given a lifeline that we clung to for grim death.

Fans collected money in buckets, bought mugs and t-shirts and showed the local authority that they were right to help save our unique local heritage brand.

Then the Keith Ryder affair almost derailed everyone’s good work.

However, yesterday we crossed the finish line. Together.

I can’t give any guarantees about the future. Football is football. Owners and fans alike are fickle. Circumstances change. Players and managers come and go.

But I think Port Vale is now in a better position than it has been for many years and its success or otherwise is now down to the business people who run it – not the SC, not shareholders, not the administrators nor the cretins who used to be in charge.

Port Vale will be run by some blokes who know full well the importance of making it a customer-focused business.

Who knows, we may even have a shot at promotion this season with the Sneyd Green Pontiff leading the line. At least now we can focus on what’s happening on the pitch rather than off it.

During the last 12 months I have fallen out with everyone: My colleagues at The Sentinel; my friends on the Supporters’ Club committee; various bidders; the administrators and even club staff.

My friends and I on the SC committee have been called all the names under the sun by keyboard warriors who haven’t been prepared to say it to our faces or lift a finger to help.

They include supporters of failed bidders for the club, former club staff, former directors and even disgruntled ex-SC committee members.

Some people still maintain we were wrong to campaign for change. Some people will never admit when they’re wrong.

I’ve witnessed unbelievable self-interest from people who really ought to have known better.

I’ve been abused while collecting money in a bucket at the Bycars turnstiles and on The Sentinel’s website by some wag who now refers to me as ‘the mob’s favourite journalist’.

How my gaffer must love that. Not.

Frankly, being involved with Port Vale Supporters’ Club has been a thankless task.

We’ve often doubted ourselves. There have been countless hours spent on the telephone and in meetings. Many a sleepless night because of what we’ve learned.

We’ve been party to discussions which have left us genuinely gobsmacked and been given information which has been dynamite. Much of it still is.

But we’ve only ever acted in what we consider to be the best interests of the club. That is the truth.

Just ask the administrators or Norman Smurthwaite if you don’t believe me. Just ask Phil Sproson and the wider Sproson family.

There’s a book in this and one day soon, perhaps, I will sit down with Gary Benson and write it.

Or maybe not.

Again, it depends what’s in the best interests of Port Vale and, sometimes – as we have learned, it’s better not to rock the boat.

It has been a privilege working with Gary and Pete Williams, my other colleagues on the SC committee and our solicitor Stephen Inglis.

It has also been a genuine pleasure to meet so many decent, honest and passionate Port Vale fans – many of whom I’m now proud to call friends.

Whatever the future holds I’m confident that Vale will be alright precisely because of people like Gary and Pete and the hundreds more who have fought this fight with us.

Today we can all be proud. Now we really can look forward and not backwards.

We’re Vale, aren’t we?

The ‘We are where we are’ poll

I’ve been as positive as anyone about Vale and urging people to pull together for the good of the club and set aside any differences they may have.
But I can’t escape the fact that there’s still a lot of discussion over the current state of affairs off-the-field at Vale Park.
Keith Ryder’s disappearing act has thrown a spanner in the works and left the club in limbo (administration) and whilst it is great to be watching football again at Vale Park we can’t ignore the fact that the future remains uncertain.
Many are pointing their fingers at the administrators for failing to do their homework. Others blame the Supporters’ Club for being ‘taken in’ by Keith Ryder.
For what it’s worth, I think everyone who campaigned for change was right – irrespective of whether or not Keith Ryder let down the administrators.
I certainly wouldn’t change a thing about the way the Supporters’ Club conducted itself. We’e always done what’s best for the club – something which can’t be said for many people involved in this pantomime.
I think it’s very easy to throw stones from sidelines.
But what do you think?
Tell me whether or not you think the fans/Supporters’ Club/and yes, yours truly, were right to campaign for the removal of Valiant 2001 and the old board.
Or tell me why you think we were better off under Bill Bratt, Glenn Oliver and Mike Lloyd and co.
Comments on the actions of the administrators and the Supporters’ Club are very welcome!

Lessons mustn’t be forgotten: Here’s to a brighter future for Port Vale

The waiting has, at times, been excruciating. If I had a quid for every time someone had asked me when Port Vale would be able to move forward under a new owner I would, by now, have enough money for… well, a season ticket at least.

First there was the placing of the club into administration and the 10-point deduction which wrecked Vale’s chances of making the play-offs.

Then there was the heartbreak of redundancies and the loss of hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of shares owned by ordinary supporters.

Next we crossed our fingers and hoped the city council would underwrite the costs of the administration process – rather liquidating the club.

After that there was the lottery of Port Vale being up for sale which left us hoping that whoever came in had the club’s best interests at heart and wasn’t just out to make a quick buck – like some of the previous incumbents.

All the while, Vale’s long-suffering fans have watched, powerless, as some of the club’s better players have moved on to pastures new during the transfer embargo.

Thankfully, if all goes according to plan Lancashire businessman Keith Ryder will this week finally be given the necessary Football League approval to take control of the Burslem club.

It has been a long and tortuous road for Vale’s employees and supporters alike and, even now, I’m pretty sure most people don’t realise just how close the club came to oblivion earlier this year.

What went on at Vale Park over the last couple of years must never be forgotten.

Now the dust has settled, it is a tale so utterly bizarre and convoluted that when retold it stretches credulity.

It is the story of how the self-interest and bloody-mindedness of a handful of individuals brought a business to its knees.

It is a salutary lesson in economics and public relations for all who follow the likes of Bill Bratt, Glenn Oliver, Peter Jackson, Graham Mudie, Mike Lloyd, Perry Deakin and Peter Miller.

In layman’s terms, the customer is king and you neglect him or her at your peril when running a football club.

Any owner of a football club has to realise that they are simply the privileged custodian of something which, hopefully, will carry on long after they have shuffled off their mortal coil.

When the mismanagement of the previous boards of directors was exposed for all to see it made Port Vale a laughing stock.

At times, certainly when I was writing stories in November and December of last year, it felt like an episode of Only Fools and Horses – only less believable…

*We had the issuing of hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of ‘nil-paid’ shares;

*We had people using those shares to vote themselves on to the board of directors;

*There was a fantasy deal with a U.S. sports pitch firm which was never what it had been cracked up to be;

*We had the family of Vale’s greatest servant snubbed over the unveiling of a statue in his memory;

*We had fans locked out of their own pub out of spite;

*We found out the Chairman was being paid an offensive amount of money for a previously-unpaid figurehead role;

*We had a manager promised a January transfer window war chest which never existed;

*We had Annual General Meetings postponed time and time again because the club’s accounts were in such a state;

*We were promised a fantastic new Robbie Williams Suite in the Lorne Street Stand which never materialised;

*We had the ludicrous situation of fans’ car registrations being noted down by security guards drafted in to keep those nasty, trouble-making customers away from senior club officials;

*We had supporters being fed lies and misinformation on an almost daily basis;

*And, finally, the absolute nadir – we learned of the remortgaging of Vale Park.

Even now many Vale fans cannot agree on who was to blame for what and cannot forgive some of what went on during what was akin to a civil war.

Back in March when I was rattling a collection bucket at the top turnstile in Bycars End a supporter came up to me.

“Would you like to donate to the hardship fund?”, I asked.

“You must be joking,” he spat. “You’re the reason we’re in this mess and not in the play-offs.”

He’s entitled to his opinion, of course.

I, for one, am very grateful that ordinary supporters at Port Vale rose up against the self-serving few who were pillaging our club and treating its customers with contempt.

I am glad of the petitions, the demonstrations, the red card protest and the stay-away fans who defeated the contemptible directors.

No-one in their right mind wanted administration but many realised it was the only way Port Vale could have a future.

Hopefully, that future begins this week with a completed takeover, an influx of new signings and a spike in the number of season tickets sold.

There are now no reasons for Vale fans not to support their club.

I believe there’s plenty of room in Stoke-on-Trent for two successful professional football teams – whatever level they may play at.

Long may that be the case.

Up the Vale!

Read my Personally Speaking columns every Tuesday in The Sentinel

ALL that matters is the long-term stability and prosperity of Port Vale

I have to say I was heartened this week by what was said at the press conference held by the administrators with regard to trying to find a buyer.

Clearly, the aim of the game now is to get to a situation where the creditors approve a Company Voluntary Agreement – thereby avoiding a points deduction at the start of next season which would be a disaster.

The fact that the administrators have received half a dozen expressions of interest in the club – at least three of which appear to be serious – is encouraging news.

Everyone always expected (and many people hoped) that Mo Chaudry would throw his hat into the ring and I’m pleased that he has.

He was treated very shabbily by the previous board and I know that many people feel that he is the future of Port Vale.

What I would say at this stage is, having fought so hard to tear the club out of the hands of a self-interested and frankly deluded group of individuals, it is incumbent on us as supporters to tread carefully at this crucial stage.

Like the administrator, we need to weigh up all the bids properly before anyone starts orchestrating a campaign for a particular bidder.

The landscape has certainly changed since Mr Chaudry published his glossy brochure ahead of last June’s EGM.

So, as with all the other bidders, I’d want to know whether his vision for the club – and the amount of money he is prepared to spend to back that vision up – has changed.

All that matters to me is the long-term stability and prosperity of Port Vale. I would hope that would also be paramount for all bidders.

Given what has happened in that last few years, stability simply cannot be achieved unless any potential owner is open and honest with the fans from day one and accepts that he/she or them must take supporters with them.

I’m hoping that all the bidders open a dialogue with the Supporters’ Club and start talking to the local media as soon as possible.

Meanwhile, we fans can still make a difference by continuing to give our 100 per cent backing to the coaching staff and players to help spur them on to kill off any fears of us getting dragged into a relegation scrap.

Talking to the staff, it is as if a great black cloud has been lifted from the club now that Messrs Miller, Oliver, Lloyd and Deakin have gone.

Port Vale may be far from safe but I’m starting to think I can see the light at the end of the tunnel thanks to the city council and our astonishing fans whose loyalty and generosity is genuinely humbling.

Read my Port Vale columns every Friday during the season in The Sentinel

No-one wins, but we are getting our club back. Now let’s see what we can do with it…

It’s looking like administration, then. Few people will be surprised because the writing has been on the wall for some time.
Only the outgoing board, in their arrogance and denial, kidded themselves they could salvage a desperate situation which was entirely of their own making.
It has felt like death by a thousand cuts and, in the end, no-one wins. Not the club’s staff, not the fans, not the shareholders – nor the club’s many creditors.
Yes, we can take some comfort from the fact Messrs Miller, Oliver, Lloyd and Deakin will soon have nothing to do with Port Vale FC.
What’s more, hopefully an administrator would make those responsible for the club’s plight pay dearly for their conduct in recent months.
However, administration remains a gamble and the Vale’s future is anything but secure.
Barring a jaw-dropping winning run, a 10-point deduction would almost certainly end any hopes of us grabbing a play-off berth.
In fact, we would all be doing the maths and wouldn’t be able to rest easy until Vale had 50-odd points on the board and were absolutely safe from the threat of relegation.
Let’s hope that will be enough of an incentive for the players who weren’t paid on Wednesday to get their heads down and stay focused until the end of the season.
Let’s also hope we don’t lose any of them or a very good manager who knows full well just how much the majority of supporters value and respect him and the work he’s doing.
At this point we should spare a thought for the club’s employees who face an anxious wait to see whether or not they will keep their jobs.
We should also acknowledge the near 1,000 Vale fans who have previously invested hundreds, sometimes thousands of pounds of their own money to help save the club.
Their shares are worthless and have been for some time, if truth be told.
I am sure most of them never expected a return on their investment and were happy to have done their bit and ‘owned’ a little piece of the club they love.
But administration would take even that away.
Once again we would all be equal.
My thanks go to the city council at this point – or rather the councillors who would be taking a brave decision, under the most difficult of circumstances, to effectively underwrite the cost of placing Port Vale into administration.
Make no bones about it – the alternative is liquidation. In other words, our club would cease to exist, sold off to pay our debts.
There are serious public purse considerations involved in their decision, since administration at least offers the authority the chance to recoup some of its £2.25m loan to the Vale.
However, I’d like to think the councillors involved in last night’s meeting also went with their gut instinct – which should have been to help preserve 130 years of heritage and an asset to the city which means so much to so many people.
The fight against the board is almost over. Now the battle for Port Vale’s very survival begins.
The cancer at the heart of the club is being cut out but the operation to remove it has left the patient on a life-support machine.
Now it us up to us, the fans, to rally behind the team and help our club in any way we can.
Miller, Oliver, Lloyd and Deakin will soon be history.
Soon there will be no excuses: No reasons to stay away. No reasons not to put your money and time into your club.
Let’s make Tuesday night the biggest gate of the season. Let’s show Micky and the lads we are with them and, crucially, let’s demonstrate to the city council that they will be making the right call.
Let’s put aside our differences and leave the recriminations to the administrator and the proper authorities to resolve.
We’re getting our club back.
Now let’s see what we can do with it.

How on earth did Port Vale end up in this sorry mess?

It began with a dream and ended with a nightmare.
It started with a vision of a fan-run club – never again to be at the whim of a sole owner in the mould of Chairman Bill Bell.
It finished with a small band of desperate, embattled men who are now, unquestionably, more unpopular and reviled than the aforementioned Bell ever was.
Today, as Port Vale stands on the precipice, we can all be forgiven for asking how and where did it all go wrong?
The answer is complex – a series of near-misses, “what ifs” and “what are the odds?”
However, it can be boiled down to attempts by a small group of individuals to defy the will of the majority of their customers: The supporters and shareholders of Port Vale – the lifeblood of the club.
Over time the “For Us All” motto somehow got lost in translation to be replaced by ‘For a few of us who know better than the rest (and have put more money in).’
Let’s not forget, there was a honeymoon period: A period of grace for the Valiant 2001 regime where the future looked rosy.
We wondered how the club could fail with heroes like Martin Foyle, Dean Glover and Andy Porter around the place to guide the team like echoes of past glories.
Chairman Bill Bratt was a man of integrity. He was the man who had given up his business to save the club he loved and could often be found painting dressing rooms or building something: Mucking in to help the Vale – a club he’d supported, man and boy, for 50-odd years.
Good old Bill. He and his fellow directors didn’t have sackfuls of cash, but they would work hard to get us some investment.
More importantly they cared – just like the supporters – because they were fans themselves.
Bridges were built with everyone from the police to the city council, who had previously been viewed as hugely pro-Stoke City.
Things were looking up. So much so that the authority loaned Vale £2.25m to help towards the creation of business and enterprise units and a children’s centre.
Vale was suddenly a thriving hub of the community – and not just on match days.
Over time, however, a pattern began to emerge. Promised investment never quite materialised. It was always just over the horizon.
Potential investors were ignored or dismissed as chancers, property developers or “total fantasists”, as I was once told.
Fans and shareholders were told that none of these individuals or groups were right for our club. Not the Texans, not Mike Newton – nor anyone else for that matter.
Meanwhile, the millions promised by overseas property firm Harlequin never arrived.
Instead, we ended up with a new shirt sponsor and a few too many people with dodgy Southern accents wandering around Vale Park as if they owned the place.
Managers came and went – Foyle, Glover and Lee Sinnott paying the price for failure and soaking up some of the growing resentment fans felt towards a board seemingly taking the club nowhere.
However, Micky Adams then arrived and suddenly there were flashes of the Vale of old. Cup victories and a genuine shot at promotion seemed to be looming.
But in December 2010, the landscape changed…
Gary Speed took the Wales job and Adams was tempted away by the prospect of managing Sheffield United – the hometown club he had supported as a boy.
That was Christmas ruined, then… followed by the remainder of the season courtesy of the car crash that was Jim Gannon’s reign.
Still, better news was that Mo Chaudry was on the scene and he was offering to buy a controlling 51 per cent interest in the Vale.

Here was a local businessman, with plenty to lose, stepping up to the plate.
When his bid was also dismissed out of hand, it was the signal for disgruntled fans’ groups to rally to his banner.
The Black & Gold Until Sold group, North London Valiants (NLV) and Starve ’Em Out – fans who felt so disenfranchised they were making the ultimate sacrifice by staying away from their club – got behind the owner of the Waterworld leisure complex.
It seemed almost inevitable that Chaudry would win his fight and that the old guard would be swept aside at an EGM convened by NLV members.
But last-minute horse-trading meant three members of the board – Bratt and his fellow directors Mike Lloyd and Glenn Oliver – survived by the skin of their teeth. Vice-chairman Peter Jackson and Stan Meigh weren’t so lucky.
Three had lived to fight another day but, in truth, Valiant 2001 were finished – five blokes with more money invested in the club having stood against the wishes of the vast majority of their fellow shareholders.
Adams returned from the Steel City and took the squad on a pre-season tour to the United States and Canada courtesy of the board’s latest beau – American artificial turf manufacturer Ameriturf, whose investment in Vale was sold to fans as being worth £1.6m.
How strange then that when the players returned with a tan, the deal had changed – and Bratt was on his way out.
In fact, the deal had morphed beyond all recognition into an £8m investment with a different U.S. sports turf company, Blue Sky International.
If it sounded too good to be true, it was, and ultimately the exposure of the “Pie In The Sky” deal and all of its associated pitfalls in early December was ultimately to prove the final nail in the coffin of a board now comprising Lloyd, Oliver, the club’s newly-appointed chief executive Perry Deakin… and Peter Miller, the man who had supposedly brokered the Blue Sky deal in return for Bratt’s departure from the club.
Their credibility with the fans was shot. Who was going to invest now in a regime which was running out of money, ideas and time?
The answer, of course, was no-one.
Blue Sky boss Hank Julicher, never one to mince his words, was right to ask Miller: “Where’s the beef, baby?”
In other words, where was the money for all these schemes we Vale fans were promised – like the Robbie Williams’ suite?
The answer, of course, is that there wasn’t any money. All of us, the fans, the shareholders and club staff had been led up the garden path by a regime seemingly driven entirely by self-interest.
You can’t issue ‘nil-paid’ shares worth £500,000 and then use them to help vote yourselves on to the board when you haven’t put a bean into the club.
You can’t expect supporters in a low-wage area like Stoke-on-Trent – some of whom have invested their life-savings into Port Vale – to swallow the news that the chairman of their cash-strapped League Two club is being paid a small fortune for a previously unpaid figurehead role.
You can’t re-mortgage Vale Park under the noses of fans to some random firm in Gibraltar and expect the major creditor – the city council – to once again turn a blind eye to the fact the club had breached the terms of its loan agreement.
You can’t stop paying your suppliers, the tax man… or your own staff, for that matter.
The sad truth is that all of this could and should have been avoided.
Back on December 1, as a representative of Port Vale Supporters’ Club, I presented Deakin and Miller with a list of questions given to us by concerned fans.
They were never answered. Subsequently, the board cut off all communications with fans, treated the media with contempt, and created numerous smokescreens to hide their own incompetence.
None of it mattered, of course, because they made one simple mistake: They disenfranchised the most important people to any football club – its supporters. In doing so, they forgot Port Vale’s raison d’être.
Now, it seems the club’s fate rests in the hands of the city council, who will decide whether or not to place the club into administration, or Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs – a body not known for going easy on football clubs who fail to pay their tax bills.
The local authority can’t win, of course, but councillors know full well just how important Port Vale is to this city, so that remains a cause for optimism.
But it is one that must be tempered by the knowledge the taxman is unlikely to be as sympathetic.
With that in mind, I think it is worth Vale fans remembering something the late, great Roy Sproson once said: “At the time, we did not know what it was like to lose and the thought never occurred to us. We were convinced, in fact, that we could not be beaten.”
Amen to that.

Port Vale’s directors are about to reap what they have sown

I have a feeling tonight’s game is going to be something of an emotional affair because we all know just how bleak the prognosis now is for our club.

After further damaging financial revelations at the weekend, the news in today’s Sentinel that the board is inquorate once again, and therefore the club is incapable of functioning as a proper business, is yet another nail in Vale’s coffin.

To be fair, I would argue we haven’t functioned as a proper business for some time because we owe money to every man and his dog and Port Vale appears to be a completely rudderless ship.

That said, however, I’m pleased Peter Miller has finally resigned. The problem is he’s done it about three months too late, by my reckoning.

He should have gone the day The Sentinel exposed him for lying to the supporters over the nil-paid shares.

Instead he went on BBC Radio Stoke after the Blue Sky deal was shown up to be a fantasy and dug an even deeper hole for himself.

This is a man who:

a) Took a whacking great salary out of our League Two club which it couldn’t afford

b) Misled supporters over the Blue Sky deal

c) Lied about paying for £250,000 worth of shares

d) Used those nil-paid shares to vote himself on to the board

e) To cap it all, he remortgaged Vale Park – thus breaking the terms of the loan agreement with the city council.

Nice work, Peter.

Mike Lloyd’s words in an ‘off-the-record’ chat early in December keep coming back to me…

He said: “I think Peter (Miller) is doing a cracking job, a great job – and Perry for that matter. Is he worth his salary? Well, I think so if he brings the sort of money we are talking about with the Blue Sky deal into the club.”

I’m not sure whether even Mike Lloyd realised at that point just how far up the creek without a paddle Peter Miller was taking us.

My only hope now is that Peter Miller is hounded to the ends of the earth for that £250,000 and made to pay for the unholy mess he created during his reign of terror at Port Vale.

Meanwhile, Messrs Lloyd and Deakin – finally realising the game is up – have held talks with the Supporters’ Club’s solicitor.

Again, this dialogue comes about three months too late in my book. During that time they have treated fans and shareholders with utter contempt.

The smart money is on us not even making it to an AGM/EGM. It won’t be held in the Robbie Williams suite, that’s for sure.

If the worst should happen in the coming days and our club goes into administration, then let’s be clear about who is to blame.

Peter Miller is responsible for many of the problems and his list of known misdemeanours is listed above.

Perry Deakin, a man who changed the story about his nil-paid shares more times than I care to remember, is the CEO of Port Vale and, as such, has to take responsibility for the financial catastrophe enveloping the club.

He and his fellow board members – Mike Lloyd and Glenn Oliver – failed to bring in any investment of any note during the last six months while they were busy alienating the fanbase and blaming supporters for all the club’s ills.

Well, it seems like you may be about to reap what you have sown, gentlemen. What a pity none of you have ever even had the good grace to admit your mistakes or say sorry.

Sadly, Port Vale and its supporters may soon pay the penalty for your arrogance and incompetence.

I really hope we beat Crewe tonight to give us all something to smile about. Something to lift the gloom.

Micky Adams and the lads certainly deserve great credit for recent results which have been achieved against a very difficult backdrop.

Whatever happens in the coming days, fans can rest assured that the Supporters’ Club will do right by them and the Vale and fight tooth and nail for its future.

One thing’s for sure. Very soon, once again, Port Vale is going to need all the friends it can get.

Read my Port Vale articles every Friday during the season in The Sentinel

Vale fans: Give me your messages and I’ll hand them all to Mike Lloyd on March 13

On February 21 more than 250 people packed out Smallthorne Victory WMC as Port Vale Supporters’ Club presented its interim board candidates to the fans – as it had promised to do.
The gloves are now off as we head towards the long-awaited EGM which will hopefully remove the current discredited Port Vale board.
On March 13 at Vale Park, as a shareholder and journalist, I intend to present Messrs Miller, Oliver, Lloyd and Deakin (well, whoever turns up…) with a petition from the fans who are the lifeblood of our club.
Please leave your comments on this blog post – along with your name, age, details of shareholding or how long you have been a Vale fan.
I will add them to mine (and Wilkesy’s) and let’s shame these people out of our club.
Many thanks,

Martin

Dear Messrs Miller, Oliver, Lloyd and Deakin. After months of lies, misleading statements and missed deadlines I implore you to step down. You are ruining Port Vale football club and alienating its fanbase. After the nil-paid shares fiasco, the Blue Sky shambles, the scandal of the chairman’s remuneration package, the shameful treatment of Roy Sproson’s family and the mortgaging of Vale Park (among other horrific mistakes), I and the vast majority of supporters and shareholders want you to leave.

Martin Tideswell, Aged 39, Vale season ticket holder and shareholder

Martin, I’m with you all the way with Port Vale. All you true Vale fans need to let our voices be heard and get our club back.

Jonny Wilkes

The more Mike Lloyd talks about Port Vale the bigger hole he digs for himself

I dare say you will struggle to find a more breathtaking abdication of responsibility.

Mike Lloyd’s 55-minute interview with BBC Radio Stoke was remarkable for a number of reasons – not least the fact that he never once admitted he had done anything wrong or had the decency to apologise to Vale supporters for the current mess.

Mr Lloyd’s total lack of empathy with the fans was quite staggering. Meanwhile, his excuses for the numerous failings of his regime had more holes than a Swiss cheese.

Vale’s acting Chairman broke cover for the first time in six weeks to speak to Radio Stoke.

This is because very soon he will be attempting to foist another couple of ‘investors’ on to Vale’s shareholders to shore up his doomed board.

Like an absent politician who suddenly reappears on your doorstep a couple of weeks before the election, Mr Lloyd gave a pre-recorded interview because he was ‘too busy’ to appear live on the radio.

Shame that – because his fellow panelists would have eaten him alive.

Until Tuesday, of course, Mr Lloyd had previously ignored questions submitted on behalf of fans by the Supporters’ Club and repeated requests for an interview by local media outlets.

Doing his very best impression of a startled rabbit in the headlights, our acting Chairman delivered a master-class in obfuscation.

According to Mr Lloyd’s version of events, we are expected to believe that:

*He had nothing to do with the Blue Sky deal
*He had nothing to do with the appointment of Peter Miller or Miller’s ridiculous remuneration package
*He knew nothing of the Gibraltar loan agreement
*He has been speaking to supporters (all three of them – after the Wimbledon game)
*The club’s parlous financial situation is entirely the fault of stay-away fans (as opposed to the board’s abject failure to bring in any new investment)
*He has never misled supporters (despite being the man who wrote to shareholders and helped Messrs Deakin and Miller get elected to the board under false pretences)

I could go on… The beauty of the interview was that the more Mr Lloyd spoke and the more he blamed everyone else for Vale’s problems, the bigger hole he dug for himself.

Indeed, I did wonder what Bill Bratt, Peter Miller and Hank Julicher thought of his finger-pointing.

Surely Mr Lloyd was either party to the aforementioned disasters and is therefore culpable – or he didn’t know about them in which case I would suggest he has spectacularly failed as a director.

Either way, I actually only have one question to put to him: Mike, do you need a hand with your packing?

Read my Port Vale articles every Friday during the season in The Sentinel

Port Vale shareholders won’t fall for the old ‘new investor’ ploy twice

Many people must be wondering what the hell is going on behind the scenes at Port Vale Football Club.
We know Messrs Miller, Oliver, Lloyd and Deakin are avoiding fans, the media and our MP and using the threatened legal action by the Supporters’ Club as an excuse not to talk to people.
Let’s be clear: No legal action has yet been taken. A solicitor has written to Vale’s directors requesting documents to which shareholders are legally entitled. End of story.
There is no reason whatsoever why Mr Lloyd, for example, cannot communicate with us – other than the fact that he knows every time he or his colleagues open their mouths they put their feet in them.
The fact is, as I write this, no-one from the board has even had the courtesy to acknowledge that letter – or the other one asking for an EGM to be called.
At present the directors are doing a faithful impression of a group of ostriches – burying their heads in the sand while kicking some of it in the faces of fans and shareholders.
Something will give soon. It has to.
You see, in order for the club to function properly beyond March 13, Mr Lloyd has to find at least two new directors to replace Messrs Oliver and Deakin (possibly three given the fact that Peter Miller’s position is untenable).
This is, of course, unless the board postpones the AGM for a third time – which wouldn’t surprise me in the least given that the club is well overdue publishing its accounts.
So the question is: Who would be naive enough to throw their lot in with the most unpopular men in Burslem?
Of course, if he does find an ‘investor’ then that person would have to be voted on to the board by a majority of the club’s shareholders.
I would suggest that is highly unlikely at the moment – given the grand alliance of shareholders who want the entire board gone.
People are not going to fall for the ‘he/she/they’ve put a few hundred grand into the club so please vote for them’ line this time around.
No thanks Mr Lloyd, I’ll take my chances with an interim board whose first job would be to open up the books and tell us exactly how bad the club’s finances are in the wake of months of poor management.
I see absolutely no alternative to this – unless anyone wants to continue with a potless club under lock-down.
At least we’ve won two games on the bounce, eh? Keep it up, lads (and Micky) because right now the last couple of results is all we have to smile about.