The Port Vale Herald
Match16 Sep 2026
Port Vale through in the cup
A 2‑0 win over Exeter City, and the draw for the next round can be watched with some interest for once.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Ryan Croasdale scores twice — 8.39
Two goals and a mark of 8.39 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Tempers go at Port Vale
Joe Gauci was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Sagesse Yalala is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Eli Campbell falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Kyle John was the difference for Port Vale
Marked 7.44. Ask anyone leaving the ground what settled it and you will get one name, which is the only award that has ever really counted.
Squad21 Sep 2026
6 new faces, and Port Vale are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Nobody could get near George Hall
Successful dribbles: 13. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Match19 Sep 2026
Port Vale draw a blank against Wycombe Wanderers
The crowd waited for a goal that never came. Wycombe Wanderers defended in numbers and left with what they came for, and the two sides could be playing still without troubling a scorer.
In brief
- Player ratings The pass was always on for Grant Ward
- Market The shop window has Jordan Shipley in it
- The terraces The press have found their man in Ryan Croasdale