You know it is no ordinary month when you face a sixth match across four different competitions, and next up for Port Vale is both an extraordinary moment and opportunity.
The Burslem-based club host Middlesbrough on Tuesday night in the Carabao Cup quarter-finals, the only tie featuring non-Premier League sides, and for Port Vale specifically it is their first-ever appearance in the last eight of this competition.
“This comes around once in a lifetime for some supporters,” Mark Porter, chairman of the Port Vale Supporters Club, tells i.
“We’ve been in other finals but it’s the first quarter-final of a major competition since the FA Cup in 1954, so it’s a free hit, really. No one is expecting them to win.”
Vale’s “lucky” run – having beaten Fleetwood Town, Crewe and Sutton United at home, as well as Mansfield Town away – has coincided with a patchy season in League One, where they are currently 15th.
And while missing out on a Premier League opponent is bittersweet, in facing Boro at home Vale have what Porter describes as their only “winnable” tie, placing them within touching distance of a match across two legs with a top-tier side.
“The only thing I’m disappointed with is that teams like Vale are not on TV,” Porter adds. “Everyone sees the Premier League teams week in, week out on the television, so why can’t they showcase a League One side and a Championship side fighting for a place in the semi-final? You knew we wouldn’t get a look-in.
“But the run does a lot for the local area. There’s a buzz about the town even though we’ve been on a horrific run in the league. It’s a big opportunity for the area, the local pubs and shops, to have a good night. This is the first of two Christmases within a week.”
‘Clarke revolutionised this club’
Wembley still seems a distant prospect for Vale in the Carabao Cup, although it has not even been two years since they visited the national stadium.
Then it was the League Two play-off final, with Vale able to put recent memories of relegation battles behind them when earning promotion under the watch of Darrell Clarke, their now former manager who delivered for the club just three months on from losing his daughter, Ellie.
“Clarke absolutely revolutionised the club and got us promoted during some tough moments in his personal life,” Porter adds. “The football club is all together now, it’s united again.
“He came to Vale and changed what we did, pushed us on and earned promotion at Wembley. He put some great foundations in for the football club, and he has left that belief in the supporters that we can do these things against the odds.
“That’s what is different. We’ve brought in some Premier League players on loan, utilising that market to our ability and bringing in quality players, like Alfie Devine from Spurs and Ollie Arblaster from Sheffield United. Those two have a bright future in football, they’ll be playing at the top level.
“We strengthened where we’ve needed to. Clarke put the foundations in, the supporters have backed the club, and though we’re light years away from where has been, we’re striving to do better.”
Taylor and Williams the next Reynolds and McElhenney?
Vale fans are accustomed to reading about the Robbie Williams association by now. The singer had been a shareholder at his hometown club before they entered administration in 2012, and now 11 years later there is talk of a Wrexham-style takeover.
“The Ryan Reynolds thing is intoxicating,” Williams told The Sun last month. “It’s a beautiful story. It’s fascinating. It’s a fairytale. I’d like to be involved in something like that. My big love in football is Port Vale, a very small team in the UK, so somewhere down the line I’ll have something to do with it.”
Cue the speculation, and when you throw into the mix Phil Taylor – the 14-time darts world champion also from Burslem in Stoke-on-Trent – then you have a potential partnership that isn’t quite Hollywood, but has the local touch to give such rumours legs.
“Me and Robbie are good friends,” Taylor recently told OLBG. “We’d have to see what it is and how much they want and stuff like that… But I’ve heard nothing from Robbie.”
It therefore remains mere rumour for now, with Porter full of praise for current owners Carol and Kevin Shanahan, who bought the club in 2019.
“They’ve come in and have done a lot of good things. They’ve changed the way they work with the community and have put a big emphasis on family,” Porter says.
“Yes we’ll get talk of Robbie Williams and Phil Taylor. It’s nice that famous and wealthy people want to invest, but until it actually happens, it’s just talk. I’ve not seen Robbie come out specifically saying ‘I want to buy Port Vale’.
“The club would love a Wrexham-style takeover, it would be massive, but it would also be great to have a billionaire to bankroll us to the Premier League. We have to live in reality, and the current owners are doing well and are committed to the football club.
“But it would be great if the owners wanted to bring in Robbie and Phil as investors.”
The current owners talk of being “Championship ready” in statements and communication with fans – “You’re ready when you’ve got a team that’s good enough,” Porter says – but ultimately for Vale fans the proof will come on the pitch.
“We’ll see if we’re good enough to play in that league against Middlesbrough,” he adds.
“When you look at clubs like Bournemouth, there’s an opportunity for us to go up the pyramid. Are we Championship ready? The infrastructure and fanbase says yes, but it has to be ready on the pitch as well. I’m not sure we’re there yet, but we’ve got some good foundations.”
And for now, the club can dream of a Carabao Cup semi-final, and why not get carried away thinking one step further, too?
“I’d like Liverpool in the final,” Porter finishes. “Make sure you get that in.”