1968: one of Vale’s darkest hours…
We have some newspaper clippings from 1968 covering the club’s expulsion from the League after being found guilty of five charges.
What happened?
As these clippings illustrate, Port Vale were found guilty of five charges of wrong doing by an FA Panel. They were expelled from the league at the end of the 1967-68 season (rather ironic as they had joined the league in 1919 when they had replaced the expelled Leeds City).
However, when Port Vale applied for re-election, they were duly voted back into the Football League fold by a vote of 39 to nine. The season effectively saw the end of Sir Stanley Matthews’s association with the side he supported as a boy.
Hurt by the charges, he left the manager’s role in the summer of 1968, allowing Gordon Lee (above right) to take over. Matthews also generously deferred some £9,000 in wages he was owed until the club was on a “sounder” financial footing. He never received it.
This scrapbook with cuttings from the late 1960’s and early 1970’s was kindly provided to OVF by a long-standing Port Vale supporter.