A Fun Night in the Potteries

[Huddy 0]

Back from Port Vale and what a dissapointing performance. Alot of players showed a lack of bottle, they didnt look bothered. Ryan Jarvis was awful, not helped by starting out of position, Jurgen Colin still seems to have the electronic tag preventing him from crossing the half way line and his distribution was dreadful. Our midfield even when there was 3 was overrun, and once again there is no great attacking threat without Mr Huckerby.

On a positive note, Gallagher responded well to being dropped with a solid performance capped by 2 penalty saves and robert Eagle got stuck in and showed commitment and a bit of skill, much more than alot of the overpaid experienced pro''s on display. Defensively we kept a clean sheet, but didnt look secure and the distribution was all poor bar Drury who untill extra time was excellant. Etuhu was  in and out of the game but still our best attacking player

However there was some entertainment which certainly wasnt provided by the football on display, and a impressive away crowd were vocal to the end, a very well done to those 800 of us who travelled. 

On an night when Gary Holt (or a very good lookalike) was in attendance, the entertainment started 10 minutes before kick off. The port vale mascot, a dog - pretended to wee against our goal posts, that got the fans going and they never stopped. The PortVale eqivalent of our snake pit, was changing ends in between halfs. At half time, full time, middle of xtra time they would all trundle off to the end their side was attacking, like animals at feeding time! The canary crowd went through the full repetoire of songs, ''we shoot burgalars'' echoed around as the apparent burgular alarm went off at vale park. There was some light entertainment thank god, because the football was poor and the closest Port vale came to half time entertainment was 1 guy winning a crap prize. It was a dreadful attendance,  no atmosphere due to no port vale fans and a painful 2 hours of football which never seemd to end.

[Dame to Blame 95]

An Excellent account of the night i could not have put it better myself ,although i never saw holty . This game reminded me of a game at Bolton in the 80''s  they had a small group of  fans just like last night it was hilarious although the game was a lot better than what we had to suffer last night a game to forget in a hurry, and your right why does Colin not overlap when he has a great chance to do so it beggers belief at times.And to think i only had 2 hours sleep before i had to go to work again i must be mad.

[valetillidie 0]

 Would just like to thank the Norwich fans last night after the game who came up to us and said well done, that game deserved a replay because neither team deserved to go out on penaltys and that your right winger number 7 played quality and would just like to say good luck in the future and hope to see you doing well this season. Joe Skinner 

[......and Smith must score. 1,336]

MH, for some mad reason I was also at Vale Park last night and your account of proceedings is spot on.

The curious migration of the fans from one end of the ground to the other was something I haven''t seen for decades and was possibly the highlight of the game. Can only happen at grounds with very poor attendances and unreserved seating so if you weren''t there last night, then, unless we visit there again I''m afraid you''ll probably never see it .Weird. 

I can confirm that Gary Holt was indeed at the game with his young son and the one and only David Lee who is currently on one of his periodic visits from Hong Kong. The three were sitting directly in front of us with the irrepressible Mr Lee engaging GH in much conversation whilst Mr Holt, Jnr, looked bored and spent most of the time playing games on a mobile phone. ( If I could have fathomed out how to make the games work on my mobile I probably would have joined him ).  

Presumably Gary''s son is a Norwich fan from his Dad''s days at Carrow Road ? If not then he could well be charged with child cruelty wilfully inflicting last night''s slow torture upon a juvenile.......

I have to agree with MH.......this wasn''t Norwich''s finest hour ( or nearly three )

 

[GJD 0]

I actually quite enjoyed the Vale fans moving along the lines to watch the action either half.

A pretty poor game though and we looked only half interested.

How do clubs like Port Vale survive with is beyond me and good luck to them in the competition.

Fortunately only had a 20 minute drive back to Crewe, but the guy in front of us had to drive all the way back to Portsmouth. Hope you made it back safe and sound mate.

Oh well Stoke Saturday. Two home games for me in a week, can''t be bad.

P.S Holty with XXL were two rows behind. Nice to see them both there. Could have done with Holty on the pitch, not sure about XXL though!!

[Joe90 0]

Yep, Stoke Saturday, then West Brom Nov 11th and Wolves Dec 23rd... all good for the midlanders!! I''m travelling up from Derby on Sat, are there many travelling from norwich?

[Huddy 0]

[quote user="Joe90"] are there many travelling from norwich?[/quote]

I reckon there will be 2,000 plus. There usually is for games in that sort of region, plus despite tuesdays defeat theres frsh optomism and its half time.

I wont be one of them this time unfortunately.

[Marty 0]

I might go but I think Stoke is a dump and this puts me off a bit!

[WestMidlandCanary 0]

GJD, yes Pompey got home alright. I got a text from on Wednesday from him saying he got home after 1.00

If nothing else, the level of humour within our three rows was almost worth the entry itself.....see you at Stoke

OTBC

[GJD 0]

Pleased to hear that WMC. Rather him than me though on that journey abck to Pompey.

Was a good night in our section despite the football.

Cheers.

[a1canary 0]

Well we get the chance to go back to the lovely Potteries at the

weekend. But i tend to agree with Marty - sorry to anyone from there

but Stoke is an absolute hole. Nightmare to get to, nightmare to get

around, truly hideous to look at, from any angle, and sprawled over

that bizarre ''5 town'' layout so it has no real centre, it just, well,

sprawls. As far as i can tell, it has nothing to commend it! Even the

ground is built on top of an old coalfield slagheap! Although the

stadium itself is ok i guess.

Amazed it didn''t feature in that silly ''worst places to live'' programme on ch4 the other night.

[Faded Jaded Semi Plastic SOB 1,020]

I think that Port Vale had a vision of Vale Park being a 70,000 capacity  "Wembley of the North", but the money ran out before they could finish the project.

[YankeeCanary 0]

A little bit off topic but, to the point that Stoke is a bit of a hole. True....but it''s a hole that Stanley Matthews emerged out of. It''s still amazing to me after all these years that Stanley only left Stoke to join Blackpool when he was 32 years old to go on to even greater fame. Stanley was still sprinting down the touchlines in his 60''s. We need to remember this when we think of Darren Huckerby. Okay, Darren may be no Stanley Matthews but he has a couple of similar qualities. He keeps himself in shape such that he may still be competitive a decade from now, and he''s loyal.