Valiants’ 90s defensive heroes
With the start of the 2021-22 season almost two months away and the recent news of Port Vale’s fourth and fifth signings of the summer, the defenders Aaron Martin and Dan Jones, it is easy to let the mind wander to former Valiant defenders.
The 90s was an era with several defensive heroes in the Port Vale team.
Allan Tankard (pictured) was brought in from Wigan Athletic for a fee of £ 87 500 and made a slow start to his Port Vale career. He was initially rather unpopular with the fans of club, but a last minute winner against Huddersfield Town in the second round of the FA Cup, helped turn things around and after settling in to his left-back position he would move on to years of consistent high quality performances.
Simon Mills was a classy right-back who made 218 appearances for the Valiants between 1987 and 1994. Mills was a hard working player and a brilliant set-piece taker. He was part of the Port Vale’s “MBE” corner routine. Milles to Beckford to Earle, which produced many goals.
Neil Aspin (pictured top) arrived from Leeds United in 1989. He became a huge fan’s favourite and a two time player of the year. He had made 409 Port Vale appearances when he moved on to Darlington in 1999.
Aspin returned to become the Port Vale manager in October 2017, taking over with Port Vale in 22nd place after an awful start to the 2017-18 season. He resigned in January 2019 after a poor spell of results the last few months and was only in the job for some 15 months.
Antony Gardner was born in Stone some seven miles south of Stoke-on-Trent. He signed associate schoolboy forms in 1997 and his first professional contract with Port Vale on 31 July 1998. He won the young player of the year award for the 1998-99 season, but was signed by Tottenham Hotspur for £ 855 000 in January 2000. He slowly worked his way into the first team, but moved on in 2008, to play for Hull City, Crystal Palace and Sheffield Wednesday. Gardner would also earn one cap for England U21 and England as he came on as a half time substitute for Sven-Göran Eriksson on 31 March 2004 against Sweden.
As the silly season is in full swing the football world is focusing on all sorts of transfer rumours. For the inside track on all rumours relating to Port Vale we recommend that you stay tuned to our forums. To keep track of the rumours pertaining to the largest players, clubs and leagues we think it best to follow dedicated blogs and websites catering to specific clubs. A great example of such a site is Chelseacore, who is sure to keep you up to date about all the latest Chelsea fc transfer news.
It seems Chelsea has leapfrogged PSG in the race for Achraf Hakimi, and it is reported that if Chelsea would be successful attracting Hakimi to London, this can easily trigger the rising star Callum Hudson-Odoi to seek a transfer away from Chelsea.
With the Euro2020 in full flow and England drawn in a group with Croatia, Scotland and the Czech Republic and Wales in a group containing Switzerland, Italy and Turkey it is a good time to remember Teddy Peers who in 1922 became the first Vale player to get an international cap playing for Wales. He made 56 appearances for Port Vale in the early 1920s.