Tom Pope's Port Vale column: Video - The five Vale games that mean the most to me

Comments (0)

THIS weekend’s game at Chesterfield has all the makings of a cracker. Two teams in play-off contention battling it out in front of a big crowd.

But what are your favourite Vale games? Here are the five I’ve played in that I’ve enjoyed the most...

FEBRUARY 18, 2011

PORT VALE 2-1 BRADFORD (February 18, 2011)

I’d just arrived on loan from Rotherham and was desperate to make a good impression on the Vale fans. So, it meant so much to score two goals to help us win in a big home game in front of the Sky cameras.

I never felt coming to play for the side I had always supported was the ‘easy option’ for me.

Don’t get me wrong, it means the world to me to play for the Vale, but I didn’t want to let anyone down when I came here.

My dad has been a Vale fan all his life, as my grandad was before him. But my Dad didn’t want me to come to Vale.

He was worried about the extra pressure I would be under and how I would feel if things didn’t work out for me.

I knew I would be under pressure to do well, but I wanted to prove I could do it.

In this instance I am glad I ignored the old man, but he has been such a great influence on me through my career.

He’s still my biggest critic and gives me a rollicking if I’ve been rubbish. In fact, even if I’ve done pretty well he still finds something to moan about!

He’s like Micky Adams was. I might have come in after scoring a couple of goals but Micky would have a go at me to keep me on my toes.

That’s just how I like it. Some players need an arm around the shoulder but a kick up the backside seems to work better for me.

PORT VALE 6-2 ROTHERHAM (September 8, 2012)

I’d had a lot of stick when I was a Rotherham player and this was the first time I had faced them since leaving the club. I felt I had a point to prove.

I hadn’t scored many goals at Rotherham but I didn’t think criticism for that was fair because I had done a job in the team, helping make goals for Adam Le Fondre.

In this game, Steve Evans’s Rotherham came to us as one of the favourites to go up and everyone expected us to get beaten. Instead we tore them apart. We were 4-0 up after 28 minutes and I ended up scoring four in our 6-2 win.

It was a great catalyst for our promotion campaign at the start of the season. It gave us a lot of confidence to play like that against one of the favourites to go up.

Personally, it was nice to stick two fingers up to people too!

But once I had made my point, that was it for me. I scored in our 2-1 win at Rotherham in the return match on Boxing Day when a few Vale fans went dressed as the Pope.

I didn’t over celebrate then though. It wasn’t the Rotherham fans I had a problem with, more the manager and I felt I had made my point in the home game.

FLEETWOOD 2-5 PORT VALE (September 18, 2012)

This was a great game, and a great performance from the lads. Like Rotherham, Fleetwood had spent a lot of money and were among the favourites to go up.

I look back at this game and our performance there as one of the defining moments of our season. We showed what we were capable of, to ourselves as much as anything, and that gave us the confidence to go on and win promotion that season.

What sticks in my mind as much as the actual game is the atmosphere with our brilliant away following on this Tuesday night match. Before the game we were thinking it was a shame it wasn’t a Saturday because, with Blackpool just down the road, loads of fans would have made a weekend of it.

But we still had a great away following, including loads of my family and friends.

That season we regularly took 1,500 to 2,000 fans to away games which made a massive difference to us, especially at some of the smaller grounds which became more like home games.

We definitely got points on the road that season which we wouldn’t have done without our fans.

I remember scoring late on at Chesterfield to help us get a 2-2 draw there that season. We had 2,000 fans there roaring us on. Without them, I don’t think we would have come back to get a point.

PORT VALE 4-0 BRISTOL ROVERS (November 20,2012)

I was bunged up, had the shakes and a dodgy stomach too. I must have looked poorly because before the game Mark Grew told me not to worry about doing shooting practice but just get myself inside and get warm.

Thankfully the lack of practice didn’t matter because I managed to get a hat-trick to become the quickest Vale player to reach 20 goals in a season. Thinking about it, I should have stuck with that pre-match routine!

Landmarks like that probably mean more when you look back on your career, but it means a huge amount to me to be in the history books with strikers who are my heroes.

Martin Foyle was my own hero and an autograph from him meant the world. I remember that when anyone asks me for an autograph or a picture.

PORT VALE 3-2 CHELTENHAM (March 29, 2013)

I would never have imagined I would be picking this as one of my favourite games when we had just gone 2-1 down and Chris Neal had me by the throat.

Let me explain. Cheltenham had a corner and, as the ball came in, someone else had lost their man to give him a free header. I got across to try to block the header, but instead Chris blocked it and the man I should have been marking scored the rebound.

Chris was not happy at all, or at least that is the impression I got as he started to throttle me.

Luckily we came back to win 3-2 and I got a hat-trick. I still reckon the third goal I scored is the most important of my career.

We had only won one of our previous six games and I hadn’t scored in a run of 11 games. To end that with a hat-trick was fantastic, but more importantly the win gave us that lift to clinch automatic promotion a month later rather than have to settle for the lottery of the play offs.

It also meant Chris Neal calmed down a bit.