Saturday 16th November

[leedsvaliant]

I've been told from someone that works within the club that we have the biggest budget in the league. It's the first time in 35 years of watching Vale that I can ever remember us having that status. We've spent potentially £750k+ on fees alone and you're not paying Stockley, Curtis, Byers etc. £500 per week. Moore is on at least £250k per year.

As others have said, our owners had a huge investment in their business and it looks like they really want to use that to push us on. The talk is that they want to get us to the Championship and then they would need other investment. They're very wealthy but you need billionaires once you get above league 1. My gut is that they'll want to give us one of the bigger budgets in league 1, should we get there. When we came up 2 years ago, the owners didn't have this wealth...they'll know now where our budget needs to be to compete at the top end of league 1. We've got to offset that some teams there get double or triple our crowds.

Lot of pressure comes with that though. Every other club will want to give us a bloody nose and no game is easy.

 

[GEORGE]

What is a derby then in your eyes?

Teams in the same City ot Town

 

[leedsvaliant]

No one.

There's a historic rivalry with Walsall that was a bit before my time.

Our only rivals are Stoke. End of discussion. I don't think it'll be too long until we're playing them again. I think their owners are trying to reduce the amount they spend on the football side of their business and they seem to be circling the drain into league 1 every year. They're the only other team I look out for results wise to see if they've lost. Couldn't give a crap how Crewe, Walsall etc. get on unless it might affect our position.

 

[leedsvaliant]

Teams in the same City ot Town

This. At school it was about 50/50 Stoke and Vale fans, with the odd glory hunting Man United fan.

Crewe are in a different county to us and it's not a place you'd every really go with living around the potteries. There's much nicer towns to visit like Leek, Macclesfield, Congleton and Buxton.

The only real commonality is that Crewe, for some reason, are covered on Radio Stoke. They were always seen as the smaller team up the road, with a lot of Liverpool and united fans going to watch them, with perhaps the only irk amongst fans being that they were always going on about playing 'the Crewe way', as though they were the football purists.

I'm kind of glad that they've ditched that, as they seemed to exist literally to blood their academy players, get promoted with real talent, sell them on for an astronomically over inflated fee, and then get relegated again. It always seemed to be an existence to line the pockets of the main protagonists rather than wanting to progress as a club. Seems like they've ditched that now as there's been very few big money fees for a while. They used to be able to add a zero on to transfer fees just because they were Crewe.

 

[lordofthepies]

don't really class Burton as a rivalry or a derby bizarrely despite us being in the same county.

Makes sense, I wouldn't call any games against any other a Cheshire team a derby. I wouldn't even really call any of them rivalries except for Chester and we haven't been in the same league as them since 1995.

 

[lordofthepies]

I think their owners are trying to reduce the amount they spend on the football side of their business and they seem to be circling the drain into league 1 every year.

I'm not sure that's true, they still spend fortunes and I think they'd spend more if they were allowed to under Championship profit and sustainability rules. It's just very funny that they keep making a real mess of it.

 

[lordofthepies]

The only real commonality is that Crewe, for some reason, are covered on Radio Stoke. They were always seen as the smaller team up the road, with a lot of Liverpool and united fans going to watch them, with perhaps the only irk amongst fans being that they were always going on about playing 'the Crewe way', as though they were the football purists.

I'm kind of glad that they've ditched that, as they seemed to exist literally to blood their academy players, get promoted with real talent, sell them on for an astronomically over inflated fee, and then get relegated again. It always seemed to be an existence to line the pockets of the main protagonists rather than wanting to progress as a club. Seems like they've ditched that now as there's been very few big money fees for a while. They used to be able to add a zero on to transfer fees just because they were Crewe.

We're covered on Radio Stoke because the BBC have never set up a separate station for South Cheshire, so Radio Stoke's mandate is to cover North Staffordshire and South Cheshire.

As mentioned earlier, I don't think that thing about Liverpool and Manchester United fans is true. I've been going for over 30 years and I don't know anyone like that.

As for the stuff about the academy - sort of. The academy is the reason we spent a decade in the Championship when other clubs of our size could only dream of reaching that level, never mind staying there. The academy is the thing that caused us to progress as a club. It definitely stalled for a while after we dropped out of the Championship (although we had a couple of very strong groups, who led us to some success), but we're now in a position where the academy produces more players than ever before, we just don't really sell to the Premier League anymore (I think there's a couple of reasons for that), the ambition seems to be to sell to the Championship and hope they go again and get us a good sell on fee.

Also, who do you think went for an inflated fee because they came from Crewe? I can't really think of anyone.

 

[Scum.]

I think we’ll see how wealthy our owners are when the January transfer window starts, but I’d guess Vale and us are the top two in that regard. Apparently ours are “very wealthy” whatever that means as no one has a clue really, our new Kuwaiti overlords are very private.

 

[DippyDon]

Vale would have had a bigger budget than Pete for sure, now though I'm not so sure, all the reports suggest we are minted

 

[dannyc5]

We're covered on Radio Stoke because the BBC have never set up a separate station for South Cheshire, so Radio Stoke's mandate is to cover North Staffordshire and South Cheshire.

As mentioned earlier, I don't think that thing about Liverpool and Manchester United fans is true. I've been going for over 30 years and I don't know anyone like that.

As for the stuff about the academy - sort of. The academy is the reason we spent a decade in the Championship when other clubs of our size could only dream of reaching that level, never mind staying there. The academy is the thing that caused us to progress as a club. It definitely stalled for a while after we dropped out of the Championship (although we had a couple of very strong groups, who led us to some success), but we're now in a position where the academy produces more players than ever before, we just don't really sell to the Premier League anymore (I think there's a couple of reasons for that), the ambition seems to be to sell to the Championship and hope they go again and get us a good sell on fee.

Also, who do you think went for an inflated fee because they came from Crewe? I can't really think of anyone.

Agreed, I don't think the inflated fee thing is correct, apart from maybe Luke Varney.

I think we're now starting to find a nice balance with the academy. It's taken a while to adust to the new model that was brought in solely to benefit Premier League teams, but we now seem to be producing more players that go on to play for our 1st team than ever before. The problem is, the quality isn't what it used to be, because your Ashton's and Murphy's and Powell's get hoovered up by the big North West clubs at a very young age. If we were still able to produce the likes of Dean Ashton and Danny Murphy, we wouldn't be in League 2. But those days are gone.

Having said that, we are looking for outside investment, so I think our current model isn't sustainable long term without that investment. The club seem pretty confident they will find investment, but we'll have to see.

 

[leedsvaliant]

We're covered on Radio Stoke because the BBC have never set up a separate station for South Cheshire, so Radio Stoke's mandate is to cover North Staffordshire and South Cheshire.

As mentioned earlier, I don't think that thing about Liverpool and Manchester United fans is true. I've been going for over 30 years and I don't know anyone like that.

As for the stuff about the academy - sort of. The academy is the reason we spent a decade in the Championship when other clubs of our size could only dream of reaching that level, never mind staying there. The academy is the thing that caused us to progress as a club. It definitely stalled for a while after we dropped out of the Championship (although we had a couple of very strong groups, who led us to some success), but we're now in a position where the academy produces more players than ever before, we just don't really sell to the Premier League anymore (I think there's a couple of reasons for that), the ambition seems to be to sell to the Championship and hope they go again and get us a good sell on fee.

Also, who do you think went for an inflated fee because they came from Crewe? I can't really think of anyone.

It did feel as though you existed solely for what money you could make out of academy players. There was a couple of lads maybe 10-15 years ago who I think you sold for a million plus....their names escape me but I remember seeing them play and thinking they were quite good but never million pound plus. You definitely traded on the Crewe academy reputation....there's nothing wrong with that.

We'll have to agree to disagree on the 2nd team thing. I saw Liverpool paraphernalia with my own eyes, and not just on one person. It happens in lower league...I'd imagine Salford have got very few genuine fans. Mk dons fans must have supported someone else before they existed. A number of the non league teams that have come up will have been a 2nd team.

 

[Spireitelass97]

Town delivered a strong performance with a 2-1 home victory against Chesterfield, securing three vital points. This result was a fair reflection of the match. While Chesterfield had more possession, the Tea Shop boys put in the effort and defended effectively, limiting their chances.

Berry’s goal in the 77th minute was outstanding, especially since it was his first touch after coming on as a substitute. It will be interesting to see if he can manage at this level long term. What a shame Dobra's acted like a big baby, he rolled around on the ground and left his team down to 10 men at times while he play acted. That type of behaviour would be unacceptable in my grandaughter's girls team. He didn't add much to the attack, at least twice keeping the ball instead of passing to Mandy who was in a better scoring position.

For us, Duke Mckenna, Asare, and Cornelius all played crucial roles, but Duke Mckenna is my clear choice for MOM. Folkingham also deserves recognition. He has been with Town since National League North days and was playing in his 300th match. Despite being 34, he shows relentless determination, constantly harassing the opposition and controlling the game. Last year, he struggled for minutes, but this season, amid injuries and the sale of key players, he has proven to be a great asset to the club. It's a pity there aren't more players like him in League 2, happy and grateful to be playing professional football and prepared to run through a brick wall for their club.

As demonstrated in our matches against Bradford, Doncaster, and Wrexham, if you’re not the most talented team, you must be the hardest working, and that’s exactly what we’ve did this week.

You definitely played like you wanted it more. Dobra seemed to have reverted back to how he was when he first came to us, chucking himself about and being a right mardarse. Disappointing as he’d calmed it down a lot.

 

[Spireitelass97]

Town delivered a strong performance with a 2-1 home victory against Chesterfield, securing three vital points. This result was a fair reflection of the match. While Chesterfield had more possession, the Tea Shop boys put in the effort and defended effectively, limiting their chances.

Berry’s goal in the 77th minute was outstanding, especially since it was his first touch after coming on as a substitute. It will be interesting to see if he can manage at this level long term. What a shame Dobra's acted like a big baby, he rolled around on the ground and left his team down to 10 men at times while he play acted. That type of behaviour would be unacceptable in my grandaughter's girls team. He didn't add much to the attack, at least twice keeping the ball instead of passing to Mandy who was in a better scoring position.

For us, Duke Mckenna, Asare, and Cornelius all played crucial roles, but Duke Mckenna is my clear choice for MOM. Folkingham also deserves recognition. He has been with Town since National League North days and was playing in his 300th match. Despite being 34, he shows relentless determination, constantly harassing the opposition and controlling the game. Last year, he struggled for minutes, but this season, amid injuries and the sale of key players, he has proven to be a great asset to the club. It's a pity there aren't more players like him in League 2, happy and grateful to be playing professional football and prepared to run through a brick wall for their club.

As demonstrated in our matches against Bradford, Doncaster, and Wrexham, if you’re not the most talented team, you must be the hardest working, and that’s exactly what we’ve did this week.

We were impressed with Asare, other than the blatant pushes but he wasn’t alone in that.