Search: ' Port Vale'

Ian Plenderleith has happy memories prompted by a shrine to Aberdeen's European heroes and toasts some hard-drinking yet non-fighting Vikings, but is distinctly unimpressed by the efforts of the G-14

Certain teams capture a boy’s imagination no matter their colours or home town. I’d never been to Aberdeen by the early 1980s, but the last Scottish team to win a European trophy (the 1983 Cup-Winners Cup) boasted one of those long-lost line-ups – crammed with tal­ented native names that never seemed to change – and rarely seemed to lose.

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They are simple in theory but increasingly contentious in practice, believes Philip Cornwall, because so much more can be at stake when a spot-kick is awarded today

That you have never seen everything the game has to offer was underlined once more in Istanbul on Oct­ober 11. Something as simple, in theory, as a penalty produced a variation that was new to me.

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Plenty of clubs are in financial difficulties but only a couple can appeal to recording artists for salvation. Port Vale fan Rob Rushton talks about Robbie Williams's unwillingness to provide financial help to his hometown club

I cannot recall the exact date, but I vividly remember Port Vale playing Watford in Division Three in the mid-1970s, when the Vale fans behind the goal sang: “You can stick your grand piano up you arse,” to Watford chairman Elton John. Either good advice, or pure jealousy – you decide – as Elton’s millions boosted Watford up the league to the First Division.

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Football has long had a drugs problem but is far from alone in this and should learn from other sports, believes Harry Pearson

As I write the raging debate is whether Rio Ferdinand had his mobile turned off or just on silent during his infamous afternoon shopping trip. It seems to me that if you replace the word “mobile” with “brain” then you are getting nearer the measure of the thing. In truth, given his absent-mind­ed performances of late the fact the Manchester United defender should forget a pressing appointment with a flask is not so surprising, nor in a sense was the reaction it provoked – though Gary Neville and co’s adolescent posturing response did achieve what had previously seemed impossible, unit­ing the nation be­hind the Football Association.

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Steve Gibson first got involved at Middlesbrough to save the club from extinction in 1986. Jon Lymer looks back at the  lowest point in Boro's history

The bond between Middlesbrough’s chairman, Steve Gibson, and the club’s supporters is uncommon in both its intensity and its longevity. This is because when the club was at its lowest ebb, Gibson acted as any of us would have done, rescuing the club from a seemingly impossible position and sticking valiantly to the task of rebuilding and transforming it.

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