Saturday 16th November

[valefan16]

Stoke and Vale have only shared the same division 7 out of the last 60 seasons I believe and, much as I and other neutrals want to see it, it's unlikely to happen unless Vale make the Championship, which is a difficult feat to accomplish for us lower league mortals these days. But absence will always make a Derby grow more intense.

Local game. I've spent a lot of time working with Stokies in various jobs and I work in Stoke occasionally so I do love the banter with both sets of fans. I'll never hate Vale like I hate Stoke but thats down to the era. I respect Vale fans for not taking the easy way out and backing a proper community club. I also found their relegation last season hilarious.

Stoke on Trent isn't immune to Liverpool and Man United fans itself. Hell I've even seen people walk around in Man United shirts in Leeds! I would say only Manchester, Liverpool, Glasgow and Newcastle in Britain are cities where the local club(s) are almost unanimously supported. If Birmingham, Bristol and London are full of Liverpool and United fans, then Stoke easily is too. So that was a strange dig I thought.

Derbies/Rivalries should be dynamic anyway and multiple ones should be encouraged. A Vale/Stoke fan in their 20s will have never seen Vale play Stoke in a meaningful game (that Checkatrade game vs their reserves doesn't count) so it's obvious other local games are as good as it gets for them at this moment. I'd much rather play Stoke than Vale but it ain't happening anytime soon so best make the most of this game whilst both teams are doing well!

To be honest these days I see more kids wearing Inter Miami or Al Nassr shirts than I do anyone else outside the local teams! (including my son! )

 

[Crewelad87]

Are Crewe going to bring more than 1,200 to us?

Club just said over 1500 sold so far. Got about 150 left of allocation. We have requested more though.

 

[valefan16]

Club just said over 1500 sold so far. Got about 150 left of allocation. We have requested more though.

Should be a decent atmosphere under the lights, two games at home in a row on Sky but where the away following is set to be over 1500 (Think Walsall have flogged about 2k so far).

 

[The_Viking_Magpie]

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.

That's the Dobra we all remember and love.

 

[Scum.]

Christ you use that gif nearly as much as i’ve used the Holloway one.

 

[GEORGE]

Cool. So by that definition, Liverpool v Man Utd, Sunderland v Newcastle, Rangers v Celtic, Cardiff v Swansea and many, many more, don't count as derbies? Nah, that's ridiculous.

1) First of all I think you'll find Glasgow Rangers & Glasgow Celtic come from / play in the same city -- Clue is in the name.
2) No the rest are not derbys -- I clasify them as rivalries. Big but still a rivalry.

 

[mozzavale]

It's ok for fans of one club to regard a match as a derby, where the other set of fans don't. At the end of the day, our closest club are Stoke, we share the same City, work with each other, have friends and family that support the other club etc. It's a derby like no other, regardless of how often it happens. If you've never experienced it, you won't understand.

On the flip side, we're the closest club to Crewe (I think that's right is it not?). So they dislike us a lot more than we do them. I'm from an era when if Crewe were winning at half time, a lot of our fans cheered (early to mid 90s, before they were promoted to the Championship).

Football fans crave rivalries though, so I'm more than happy to go along with that. It will never be a derby for me though.

 

[Conker]

Ours is of course Forest though Mansfield it's there big day out when they get let out of their caves, similar to crewe at vale

Heyup mate, how you doing down here?

Forest fans don’t give a fuck about Notts County in any capacity, in fact quite a few probably support you, so it’s all a bit silly really.

Unfortunately our rival spot is taken up by our Derbyshire friends across the M1, so as discussed on here before you are unfortunately just one of those clubs nobody cares about enough to have a proper rival.

No shame in it. Plenty of other examples.

 

[Mid-Cheshire-Alex]

Funny one the Potteries derby. Stoke in a similar position to Forest in that they share a city with a much smaller team, but Forest unlike Stoke could not give a toss about the smaller team. Yet for all the perceived hatred from the Vale fans towards Stoke the last few derbys at VP have barely scrapped 10k (according to 11v11), that would be with at least 4k Stoke in there, plus one match under 9k, which probably meant more Stoke than Vale in VP, and that’s not including the daft diddy cup match the other season. Very odd, I’m sure there must be a valid reason for the poor Vale turnouts?

 

[lordofthepies]

On the flip side, we're the closest club to Crewe (I think that's right is it not?). So they dislike us a lot more than we do them. I'm from an era when if Crewe were winning at half time, a lot of our fans cheered (early to mid 90s, before they were promoted to the Championship).

A load of Stoke and Vale fans came to Wembley to cheer for us in the 1997 playoff final

 

[spireite]

think there has to be some history of rivalry too. We’re pretty close to Derby but never had a rivalry with them, partly cos we were too busy hating Mansfield and partly cos they’ve always been higher up than us so we hardly ever play them.

We always used to have a bit of beef with the Sheffield clubs but it's hilariously one sided because they genuinely couldn't give 2 hoots about us. Although did really hate losing to us. It's kind of faded away a bit now because it's a long while since we've played them.

Heyup mate, how you doing down here?

Forest fans don’t give a fuck about Notts County in any capacity, in fact quite a few probably support you, so it’s all a bit silly really.

Unfortunately our rival spot is taken up by our Derbyshire friends across the M1, so as discussed on here before you are unfortunately just one of those clubs nobody cares about enough to have a proper rival.

No shame in it. Plenty of other examples.

I've always wondered about same city/town rivalries. Can they really exist, truly? These guys must work together, drink in the same boozers, even be brothers a lot of the time. Then for 2 hours every so often pretend to hate each others guts. Feels proper performative.

 

[Soz]

Funny one the Potteries derby. Stoke in a similar position to Forest in that they share a city with a much smaller team, but Forest unlike Stoke could not give a toss about the smaller team. Yet for all the perceived hatred from the Vale fans towards Stoke the last few derbys at VP have barely scrapped 10k (according to 11v11), that would be with at least 4k Stoke in there, plus one match under 9k, which probably meant more Stoke than Vale in VP, and that’s not including the daft diddy cup match the other season. Very odd, I’m sure there must be a valid reason for the poor Vale turnouts?

The difference in size stoke v vale isn't as big as forest v county. Stoke are naturally mid championship and historically we are probably mid league one. It's only the relatively recent investment into stoke giving them their prem run coinciding with some of the darkest days in our history that has made the gap look wider.

Stoke fans love to say how much they don't care about us but it is pathetic, if you go on their forum it never normally takes more than 2-3 clicks to find a thread wishing us out of existence. I suspect this explains a bit of the "we don't care about them" attitude towards Crewe from some vale. It's a dig that demonstrates the opposite compared to like a Burton who we genuinely don't care about either way.

The 90s attendances are weird though, I think if we ever got back to the champ we would blitz our previous attendances out of the water. The last few years we've regularly got 7k+ home fans and 5 figure crowds went from pie in the sky to a handful per season.

Even competing in upper league one I think we could get a 10k average based on the last few years. It seems similar with a few of the similar sized 90s clubs enjoying far higher crowds now than 20 years ago when we were champ/L1.

Final note...the last home game against the lards we were forced to close the paddock...the front half of the big stand down the side because of crowding issues blocking fire escapes earlier in the season. And the Lorne st was half built so we had a vastly reduced home capacity for that one.

Vale v stoke, the next time it happens, will be a warzone, I'm not sure the rest of the country realises.

 

[valefan16]

Funny one the Potteries derby. Stoke in a similar position to Forest in that they share a city with a much smaller team, but Forest unlike Stoke could not give a toss about the smaller team. Yet for all the perceived hatred from the Vale fans towards Stoke the last few derbys at VP have barely scrapped 10k (according to 11v11), that would be with at least 4k Stoke in there, plus one match under 9k, which probably meant more Stoke than Vale in VP, and that’s not including the daft diddy cup match the other season. Very odd, I’m sure there must be a valid reason for the poor Vale turnouts?

Paddock was shut last time IIRC so only had half the Lorne St and Bycars for Home fans... the one prior to that was on Sky I recall but that was a time post relegation from the Championship when our numbers had dropped generally.

If one was to happen now it would easily see 11-12k minimum.

 

[Son of Cod]

2) No the rest are not derbys -- I clasify them as rivalries. Big but still a rivalry.

Ah yes the South Wales Derby and Tyne and Wear Derby - both famously not derbies.

 

[The_Viking_Magpie]

Heyup mate, how you doing down here?

Forest fans don’t give a fuck about Notts County in any capacity, in fact quite a few probably support you, so it’s all a bit silly really.

Unfortunately our rival spot is taken up by our Derbyshire friends across the M1, so as discussed on here before you are unfortunately just one of those clubs nobody cares about enough to have a proper rival.

No shame in it. Plenty of other examples.

Conker you are nothing if not consistent.

I suspect more Forest fans support you than us.

Couldn't agree more today and in the past two decades they haven't given a shit about us and rightly so. It's very one sided.

Prior to that briefly in 90s and 80s and certainly in the 70s they very much did. It's called history.

We dislike Forest because they are bigger, better, in the same city and because we went to school with them, work with them. Mansfield back then were viewed as Nottinghamshire's 3rd wheel, the poor relation, there were a grand total of two known Stags fan in my 800 children comprehensive school north of the City. This combined with commonly being in a higher league meant they were almost totally irrelevant to the fanbase of Notts or Forest.

Because our rival is actually a big club then naturally we won't play often, and they won't care. If you get two perennial lower league clubs who roughly stay shit all the time well of course you play each other more and the rivalry means more. The other difference is it's only limited numbers each time that get to see it or care.

But as long as it's really important to those two clubs then great no shame in it. You will always have each other.

 

[valefan16]

The difference in size stoke v vale isn't as big as forest v county. Stoke are naturally mid championship and historically we are probably mid league one. It's only the relatively recent investment into stoke giving them their prem run coinciding with some of the darkest days in our history that has made the gap look wider.

Stoke fans love to say how much they don't care about us but it is pathetic, if you go on their forum it never normally takes more than 2-3 clicks to find a thread wishing us out of existence. I suspect this explains a bit of the "we don't care about them" attitude towards Crewe from some vale. It's a dig that demonstrates the opposite compared to like a Burton who we genuinely don't care about either way.

The 90s attendances are weird though, I think if we ever got back to the champ we would blitz our previous attendances out of the water. The last few years we've regularly got 7k+ home fans and 5 figure crowds went from pie in the sky to a handful per season.

Even competing in upper league one I think we could get a 10k average based on the last few years. It seems similar with a few of the similar sized 90s clubs enjoying far higher crowds now than 20 years ago when we were champ/L1.

Final note...the last home game against the lards we were forced to close the paddock...the front half of the big stand down the side because of crowding issues blocking fire escapes earlier in the season. And the Lorne st was half built so we had a vastly reduced home capacity for that one.

Vale v stoke, the next time it happens, will be a warzone, I'm not sure the rest of the country realises.

Interesting, thought I would take a look regarding our attendances now v the past:

Last season with 2 home wins in over half a season and the worst on records IIRC at Vale Park our average was 2000 up on pre Covid, the season before 3000 up.

Generally in the Championship we got around 7-9k in that 8 year spell so 2023 was higher than 1997 but factor in big away followings in a very Midlands based Championship era.

The year in the Championship when we only had below 8k (1997) was the one we actually ended up in the Play Off Hunt for a place in the Premier League and our highest finish post war!

Long way of the glorious days of the 50's when we managed over 20k average attendance! (one game had our record 50k!)

 

[Conker]

We always used to have a bit of beef with the Sheffield clubs but it's hilariously one sided because they genuinely couldn't give 2 hoots about us. Although did really hate losing to us. It's kind of faded away a bit now because it's a long while since we've played them.


I've always wondered about same city/town rivalries. Can they really exist, truly? These guys must work together, drink in the same boozers, even be brothers a lot of the time. Then for 2 hours every so often pretend to hate each others guts. Feels proper performative.

Some cities it makes sense but that’s because there’s more to it than just football, unfortunately, ie Glasgow.

I do feel for County fans, because no matter how bad they want it to be real, if Forest fans do not consider it a rivalry then it’s not one, it’s just a dream.

 

[Mid-Cheshire-Alex]

Just seen the Vale have capped our allocation at 1800, shame as we would have taken a lot more. Let’s up they don’t mind when we cap theirs at 1600 in April. Fairs fair.

 

[Crewelad87]

Just seen the Vale have capped our allocation at 1800, shame as we would have taken a lot more. Let’s up they don’t mind when we cap theirs at 1600 in April. Fairs fair.

We wouldn't have taken alot more. Probably around 2k would be my guess.

But this is twice Vale have done this to us now, I certainly hope we restrict them to just the ice cream stand this season.

 

[Son of Cod]

Some cities it makes sense but that’s because there’s more to it than just football, unfortunately, ie Glasgow.

I do feel for County fans, because no matter how bad they want it to be real, if Forest fans do not consider it a rivalry then it’s not one, it’s just a dream.

How many L2 clubs are actually in consensual two way main rivalries? I'd say us (Scunny), Vale (Stoke), Chesterfield (Stags), Cheltenham (Gloucester), Swindon (Oxford) and Wimbledon and MK obviously...I don't really know about the North West lot tbh. So we're at 7 at present.

How about all the sad sack clubs that nobody else cares about all put their names into a hat and we pick them out and they get given a new Palace Brighton style rival?

 

[Wootball]

Just seen the Vale have capped our allocation at 1800, shame as we would have taken a lot more. Let’s up they don’t mind when we cap theirs at 1600 in April. Fairs fair.

They don't need the money with their financial situation, might as well get the advantage in another way too.

 

[woburn]

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

Allegedly, after QPR we are owned by the welthiest people in the EFL. They appear to be willing to spend too.

 

[Mid-Cheshire-Alex]

They don't need the money with their financial situation, might as well get the advantage in another way too.

Maybe, unless Staffs plod have got involved again.

 

[valefan16]

They don't need the money with their financial situation, might as well get the advantage in another way too.

If that was the case we'd have capped Walsall as well.

 

[Mid-Cheshire-Alex]

How many L2 clubs are actually in consensual two way main rivalries? I'd say us (Scunny), Vale (Stoke), Chesterfield (Stags), Cheltenham (Gloucester), Swindon (Oxford) and Wimbledon and MK obviously...I don't really know about the North West lot tbh. So we're at 7 at present.

How about all the sad sack clubs that nobody else cares about all put their names into a hat and we pick them out and they get given a new Palace Brighton style rival?

There is not much love lost between the Alex & Stockport, though they probably see Altrincham as their main rivals in the intense Manchester suburbs battle.

 

[Mid-Cheshire-Alex]

If that was the case we'd have capped Walsall as well.

Fair point, but why cap us, again?

 

[valefan16]

Fair point, but why cap us, again?

No idea on this occasion, only thing I can think is if Vale want a guaranteed x amount sold to open another block for instance, similar possibly to Notts with us?

 

[Son of Cod]

There is not much love lost between the Alex & Stockport, though they probably see Altrincham as their main rivals in the intense Manchester suburbs battle.

Crewe and Stockport makes great sense, I'm happy with that one.

 

[The_Viking_Magpie]

How many L2 clubs are actually in consensual two way main rivalries? I'd say us (Scunny), Vale (Stoke), Chesterfield (Stags), Cheltenham (Gloucester), Swindon (Oxford) and Wimbledon and MK obviously...I don't really know about the North West lot tbh. So we're at 7 at present.

How about all the sad sack clubs that nobody else cares about all put their names into a hat and we pick them out and they get given a new Palace Brighton style rival?

And of all those quoted fierce and sometimes toxic consensual two way rivalries only 1 play in the same league and even that one is newly formed and hotly disputed.

Oh how I wish we had an equally crap club to be our long time dance partner when it comes to lower league rivalries.

Instead we are just stood on our own against the wall jealously looking at Mr Hot Stuff strutting his stuff , who doesn't even acknowledge us.

 

[Stocky]

How many L2 clubs are actually in consensual two way main rivalries? I'd say us (Scunny), Vale (Stoke), Chesterfield (Stags), Cheltenham (Gloucester), Swindon (Oxford) and Wimbledon and MK obviously...I don't really know about the North West lot tbh. So we're at 7 at present.

How about all the sad sack clubs that nobody else cares about all put their names into a hat and we pick them out and they get given a new Palace Brighton style rival?

I reckon we could stake a real claim for the biggest sad sack club nobody cares about.

We have United and City who obviously don't give a fuck about us, City did for a brief spell late 90's, early 00's when we would play them and mostly beat them. We were even a division higher when they were in the third tier. But not now obviously.

The other Greater Manchester clubs, nothing substantial going on there at all towards us. They tend to have their own Bolton-Wigan, Bury-Rochdale, Oldham-Rochdale (even Huddersfield before us). They're all North Manchester Yonners.

So we looked South towards our spiritual home of Cheshire, Macclesfield was a bit of a rivalry for a time but they're tinpot and now knocking about in the Northern Premier League and Macclesfield and Altrincham is the rivalry which does it quite strong historically. We think we're too big for both so dismiss them. And we actually like Altrincham.

Crewe as mentioned is the most natural one for their own reasons of not having a proper rival. The two clubs don't like each other but it's just not a Derby. If we played each other consistently for a spell when we were both going for something like we were last season, I actually think it would develop as both fans would almost welcome it. A lot of Stopfordians are branching out into new builds in Sandbach, Middlewich, Holmes Chapel etc which may start playing a part as the fans of the two may start to mix more.

And to just to confirm our sad stack state of no rivals, if you asked our fans who they hate most (apart from United or City) the older heads would say Burnley and the younger heads would probably say Wrexham. Work that one out.