The second in a series of articles looking at what went wrong for Port Vale during the 2025-26 season.
Read all our 2025-26 relegation explainers
Relegation explainer #1 – Port Vale’s forward failings
LESSONS TO LEARN How owners' mistakes resulted in relegation
As part of this site’s “Explainer” series we will examine some of the issues that we feel played a big part in Port Vale getting relegated. These are not presented in any particular order but we hope the club will address them when trying to recover from what has been a terrible season.
Here we look at how the club’s owners have contributed to the 2025-26 relegation:
MOVE MOORE QUICKLY
Current manager Jon Brady has done reasonably well in turning around the team’s form. But ultimately it always felt like a losing battle – it was too little, too late. How much different would it have been if the board had been more decisive with sacking Darren Moore?
Many fans felt Moore should have gone in November after the dreadful home loss to Plymouth. If he had, Brady would have been in before the January window. This could have had two positive effects
a) Brady could have prepared for the window in advance
b) if results had already improved then Vale may not have been so adrift in January.
A better League position may in turn have attracted better players in January. Vale’s lowly position meant Brady could only attract loans and free agents – he may have had better luck if he had time to improve things earlier.
In summary, Vale may even have scraped to safety if only the board had acted sooner.
MAKE IT ACCOUNT
This may be a tricky one for the club as it may go against everything they’ve set the club up to be but… people need to be accountable.
Let’s take just one example – the dreadful pitch. Was proper due diligence really done on the firm which did the improvements? Is there any claw-back in the contract if they were found to be negligent? Will Vale be pursuing any action against them if they are to blame? If those steps are not in place then surely someone messed up and maybe shouldn’t be in place. Who was responsible for the summer transfers – should they still be in place?
I guess what I’m trying to say here is – it’s one thing being a caring club where employees feel valued and happy, but that shouldn’t slip into complacency where no-one is to blame for errors.
NOT LEARNING LESSONS
This season has distinct echoes of Vale’s previous relegation. A distracting cup run (in 23/24 it was the League Cup, in 25/26 it was the FA Cup), poor recruitment management (in 23/24 it was David Flitcroft, in 25/26 it was Lee Darnborough), failure to act quickly enough (in 23/24 that was to sack Andy Crosby, in 25/26 that was to sack Darren Moore).
The worry for supporters is that the club hierarchy simply did not learn the lessons from the 2023/24 campaign.
SELECTIVE MESSAGING
There’s a perception that Vale owners enjoy discussing the good times but not the bad. That may be unfair but it was noticeable that during a season of very little in the way of fans communication, co-owner Carol Shanahan was on BBC Radio Four and national TV ahead of the Chelsea glamour FA Cup tie.
Again, it may be unfair to say it, but it’s easier to be communicative when things are positive, less so when things are not going to plan. However, when the club is struggling is exactly the time loyal supporters expect to hear from the owners. Whether that’s reassurance, clarification of the club’s strategy to resolve the issues or just to listen to concerns, being silent when things get tough isn’t going to please the fanbase.
As the club statement itself said when relegation was confirmed – words alone are not enough, but more regular communication is surely a better option than radio silence and the club shouldn’t only be available to the media during the good times.
FOOT OFF THE BALL?
One of the issues this website has pushed is whether the club needs more specialist football knowledge at a higher level. While the appointment of David Flitcroft as Director of Football (perhaps because there were no other candidates after Flitcroft angled for the role) was not a success, that’s not to say another DoF would also fail. This may address some of the concerns about the owners seeming giving green lights to reckless summer signing sprees and not acting decisively when removing managers.
The counter argument is that the owners have been in the game long enough to be able to know the game now. It’s a fair point and a DoF would obviously not be cheap. Ultimately, it’s a question only Vale’s board itself can answer and we’d hope there is a honest conversation about whether more specialist know-how is required.
MONEY FOR NOTHING
So, this topic is possibly connected to the last one – a lack of fundamental football knowledge… last season the club lost £6.1m (with the majority of spending attributed to the football side of the business). That’s an AWFUL lot of money to spend for a side which ultimately was very much not League One ready.
It’s one thing to have owners whose largesse means the club is generously funded but it does no-one any favours if that money is not spent wisely. Vale’s promotion rivals last season all spent considerably less and all of them look like staying up.
Racking up multi-million pound debts isn’t helping the owners’ bank balance and isn’t helping any future sale (the club currently having racked up £17m in loans since 2019). Those loans may never be called in (though that is a matter of faith in the owners, not a proven fact) but regardless they don’t reflect well on how the club is being run when others can do it for so much less.
TO-DO LIST
So after all that… what to do? Well, here’s a wishlist for the club’s hierarchy
- Don’t keep repeating mistakes. Learn from your errors.
- Have more accountability within the club if things go wrong.
- Have an honest discussion about whether more football knowledge is needed at board level.
- Improve communications especially when delivering bad news.
- Recognise that splashing the cash is not always the answer.
Don’t let Alan see this for God’s sake
Rob you have laid bare the disastrous decisions made by the owners and there consequences. Decisions like hanging on to a manager long after it would have been sensible to part company have been repeated with no apparent learning from experience.
Owning and managing a software company where decisions are made in house and the driving force is maintaining the profitability of the company and keeping ahead of your competitors is very different from a football club. In my view ownership and managing a EFL football club is very different and requires additional skills not normally required in a non football business. Every thing the football club does is under the spotlight of the media and the fans who for them their team has become part of who they are and experience the emotional highs and lows generated by their club.
Every thing the club does or doesn’t say is scrutinised in the finest detail and like it or not from this comments and assumptions are made and circulated or in some cases become a news item on TV, Radio or the Press nothing of which the owners can control.
Like it or not for the owners this is a sink or swim challenge.
The owners have a lot to answer for, while it can be thrown at them they failed to act quick enough to dismiss Moore, relegation was totally down to Darren Moore. No other manager has had the backing and support that Moore had, and he has no excuse for not delivering. As for the owners, they came into the club (which we are grateful for) promising an honest and open club. Sadly that’s something that has never materialised. Three of the most important decisions they have made was to bring in Flitcroft, Hancock and Moore into the club, and what a disaster they have all turned out to be. These decisions have almost certainly brought two relegations to the club, YET they have continued to fail to admit their mistakes. Although Flitcroft and Moore have gone at great cost to the club, HANCOCK is still there. Hancock is there to over see the running of the club, a club loosing £17million. So what does the club do to cut these losses, stop printing programmes, and have season ticket holders use the same season ticket card for 5years, and bring in a financial manager to do HANCOCK’S job. Like Flitcroft and Moore what has Hancock got to do to be held accountable. We have got the worst pitch we’ve had since the 60’s, another great and expensive decision to get rid of the well thought of Steve Speed. But yet again WHO is being held accountable? The Railway Paddock was left with no toilets, left to get in such a state they were condemned, don’t we have a stadium maintenance manager? If only the owners would speak openly to supporters and not just the nodding chosen few we might understand. The debt might just be smoke and mirrors for something else, and might not exist in the way we see it? We just don’t know. As a fan you just feel helpless and under appreciated by owners who are totally detached from the thoughts and concerns of the supporters. They can not to continue to stick their heads in a bucket of sand and think nothing is wrong!
Agree with everything you have said
As always Rob, an informed and perceptive analysis. I continue to believe that there is no identity for the football side. The community side has an identity. Carol’s recent elevation to be Chancellor at Keele University is an acknowledgement of her huge community footprint.
On the football side there continues to be huge investment in the academy but with limited benefits. I have long asked what is the cost of running the academy and what is the return. Should we instead concentrate on picking up players discarded by Premier League clubs. Should we spent more time scouring non-league clubs to obtain talent. We may then get some good service from these players before selling them on for big profits.
Has the investment in corporate facilities produced the required return? Given the loss of 3 sponsors all at the same time, and the absence of a shirt sponsor (rubbish excuse about 150th) has money been wasted here? Will there be a return? Is the huge staff number realistic?
Can we continue to spend money on Vale Park, or do we need a new stadium? Why the focus on Championship ready? We will never have the gates to support ourselves at this level until there are big changes.
Spending money is a perceived as a positive, but spending money wisely is much more positive.
I still support Carol but we need to have a clear football identity and not throw money at things, we need sensible investment, not splurge spending. The future of Port Vale is at stake, these huge losses cannot be sustained and it puts the club in huge peril. We need to address it now.
Lindsay,
Brilliantly put – I agree 100%
Disagree about the worst pitch since the e 60s. The pitch was poor in the 80s, ask Spurs, and frequently became very heavy in the 90s and noughties. Steve Speed was not a miracle worker.
I agree with Lindsey, there seems to be no one behind the scenes with experience. People like Colin Garlick knew everything about football. Then the programme was stopped supposedly losing 30k a year, why then can non league clubs and most league clubs still do them? What was the reason for losing 30k a year?
The amount of staff behind the scenes is ridiculous, that’s why we are losing 5 million a year. Who is paying for the foundation and Bradeley and other schemes?
Vale fan and season ticket holder 67 years
I can only agree with most of the comments let’s face it owning a football club is a poison chalice and a money pit and unlike running any other business so many brilliant businessmen have come a cropper. You only have to look across the city now the Coates gravy train is drying up, I cannot condemn the board for many of the things they have done and are trying to do, for those of us old enough to remember the state of the ground with only 2 poor stands and no facilities the stadium is a revelation my Dad would not recognise.
However the pitch is still awful but how come other teams can come and play on it? I and many others called for DM to go as early as October but it appeared to fall on deaf ears let’s be honest the club couldn’t afford to pay him off so they buried their head on the sand and hoped for a miracle it until they were forced into it.
We need a better scouting system scouring the lower leagues and also lower leagues abroad where young players are playing men’s football earlier than this ridiculous system of young loaners from higher league clubs who haven’t kicked a ball in men’s football turning up earning more money than half the signed players put together, then if we bring them on we can’t afford to buy them!
It’s time for honesty and communication including building bridges with the local media and supporters!
Owners not without criticism, but running the Vale has always been a thankless task. Even in the best of times in the second tier with Rudge, home gates only averaged 8,500 – 9,000 at best. Therein lies the biggest problem.
Having just read Lindsay Whitehouse’s post, while I agree with her views on the club’s finances, I can’t get my head around why the club needs a football identity? No clubs academy seems to bring in the financial returns as they did in the 80’s and 90’s, just look at Crewe. Vale tend to sell their better youngsters when they are quite young instead of allowing them to progress through the ranks. This could be due to financial reasons or pressure from the youngsters parents to allow them to move to the bigger clubs. As for signing released youngsters from premiership clubs. Vale would be at the end of a very long queue from a financial point of view to do this, and at the mercy of agents. The suggestion that Vale become a club who just pick the best out of non league football and sell them on, that’s easier said than done. It’s taken Vale 50or60years to my knowledge, to find just Horton, Jones, Taylor and Tolay. 3 of those were signed by JR, showing just how difficult it can be. It’s ridiculous to say a club needs an identity and put all your eggs in one basket, and no successful club can rely on just one of these options. The only identity I want for my football team is, to be successful, regardless from where the players come from
I see that Carol has been appointed to Chancellor at Keele University….one of whose roles is to provide ” guidance,support and direction to the Vice Chancellor and management team”….it would appear that the decision makers at Keele have not followed her track record at running Port Vale ! Is their relegation in the University sector ?