Flashback – in 1947 Ronnie Allen scores six goals in two home games
2022 marks 75 years since the Port Vale 1947-48 season. One of the season’s most memorable feats was the goalscoring of striking prodigy Ronnie Allen who scored consecutive hat-tricks in two home games.
The club’s second season after the war saw them have 81 players on their books although many were amateurs and never played for the first-team. Of those first-teamers, Allen was undoubtedly the star.
The locally born forward had signed an amateur deal with the Valiants in 1944 and had made his first-team debut four months later when aged just sixteen years of age.
In 1947, he was eighteen and rising to prominence. After five goals in eighteen games during his first full season, he would finish the 1947-48 campaign as the club’s top scorer.
His scoring stats were helped by a remarkable run of goalscoring during nine days of September 1947. On the 5th September Port Vale hosted Aldershot and in a thrilling game, Vale won 6-4 thanks to a hat-trick by Allen. On the 14th September, Vale hosted their next home game and again Allen was the star as he netted a second hat-trick in a 7-0 thumping of Watford. With four wins out of their opening eight games, Vale may have looked set for a promotion push but sadly a leaky defence put paid to those hopes as the club finished eighth.
However, it was a season which saw personal success for Allen. He scored thirteen goals in all to finish as the club’s top-scorer.
What happened next…
Ronnie Allen’s potential was there for all to see. In 1950, after 38 goals in 135 games for the Valiants he was sold to West Brom for a club record fee. He rose to even greater prominence with the Baggies, averaging a goal every other game and subsequently earning five England caps (he scored twice for his country). Allen was also instrumental in ending Port Vale’s Iron Curtain’s bid for FA Cup glory. It was Allen who scored the decisive penalty in Vale’s 2-1 semi-final defeat to Albion. Allen retired from playing in 1965 with a career record of 702 games and 309 goals. He then entered management with spells at Wolves, Athletico Bilbao, Walsall and West Brom. He sadly passed away in 2001.
FA Cup semi-final 1954: Former Valiant Ronnie Allen scores the penalty despite Ray King diving the right way