Duo’s removal is NOT the end of the affair
In his latest column, OVF founder Rob Fielding says that the forthcoming removal of Perry Deakin and Peter Miller from the CEO and Chairman roles, while welcome, do not represent closure for the vast majority of Port Vale supporters.
Fielding says that fans will only be happy when the entire board has been removed from Vale Park.
Thanks to a packed fixture list, the days just after Christmas are usually dominated by events on the pitch…
Not so at Vale Park.
A win over Hereford and the off-pitch behaviour of Gary Roberts aside, events in Burslem have centred on the people in the boardroom.
Perry Deakin announced his resignation and then in an interview with the Sentinel he tried to blame everyone bar himself for the mess Port Vale are in. Then the board announce that Peter Miller’s chairmanship was only a short-term one after all (funny how they never mentioned that before) and that he’s not going to be Chairman past that point.
Nevertheless, the duo remain on the board, for now (they presumably cannot leave as it would produce a non-functioning two-man board), there’s no designated Chairman (Mike Lloyd filling in for now) and a fresh £300,000 debt to pay off
So, while Miller and Deakin prepare for a farewell lap of honour (note to club – that’s one sure-fire way of boosting attendances at Vale Park) what about the other two members of the board?
Mike Lloyd and Glenn Oliver have been chiefly noticeable by their silence on recent events. But if they think adding two new faces to the boardroom to replace Miller and Deakin will draw a veil over the sorry Miller era, they will have badly misjudged the mood of Vale fans.
Pretty much every Vale fan wants the ENTIRE board out and while taking the steps to removing the higher profile Miller and Deakin, is a welcome first step, it will not solve everything.
Fans, disappointed by a summer EGM that came so close to removing the entire Bratt board, are not in a mood to compromise.
Only a New Year’s clean sweep of the ENTIRE Port Vale boardroom will do.
About the author: Rob Fielding has been a Port Vale fan for thirty years. He founded the award-winning onevalefan.co.uk website in 1996. These are his personal views and he welcomes your comments on them.