Relegated from League One and stripped of top scorers mid-season, Port Vale somehow reached the FA Cup quarter-finals for the first time in 72 years. The story of how they did it deserves to be told properly.
Two Seasons in One
There are football seasons that leave supporters with nothing but the long wait for August. Then there are seasons that contain something stranger, a contradiction so complete that looking back feels like trying to hold two entirely different stories in your head at once. Port Vale’s 2025/26 campaign was that second kind.
The Potteries club suffered relegation from League One whilst simultaneously reaching the FA Cup quarter-finals, winning eleven cup matches across all competitions, in a season in which they managed only nine league victories. That inversion, extraordinary in knockout football, wretched in the league, defines a year that Vale supporters will argue about for decades.
Collecting just two points from their first six league games and failing to score throughout November placed Vale in the relegation zone from the outset. The early-season collapse was deep enough that no subsequent recovery could fully close the gap, and Darren Moore was relieved of his duties in late December with the Valiants ten points from safety.
Former Northampton Town manager Jon Brady was brought in to arrest the decline. He steadied things enough to produce some memorable late-season results, but the arithmetic was ultimately insurmountable. A 1-0 defeat at Cardiff City confirmed relegation, ending the top-flight-adjacent chapter and returning Vale to League Two for the second time in three seasons.
Ben Waine and the Cup That Refused to Behave
While the league campaign descended into survival mathematics, something else was building in the cup. Vale were drawn at home in five consecutive rounds of this season’s FA Cup, and after a routine victory over non-league Maldon and Tiptree, they disposed of League Two Bristol Rovers and Fleetwood Town with 1-0 wins before the run took a remarkable turn.
Ben Waine’s extra-time strike fired Vale into the fifth round after a 1-0 win over Championship Bristol City, with the New Zealand international scoring after 112 minutes to set up a home tie with Premier League Sunderland.
What followed was one of the competition’s defining moments of the season. Port Vale produced one of the great FA Cup shocks as the League One basement side stunned Sunderland 1-0 to book their place in the quarter-finals, their first appearance at that stage in more than 70 years since they made the last eight in 1954. Waine, a boyhood Newcastle supporter, headed home from a corner in the 28th minute. It was Vale’s first win over top-flight opposition since a fourth-round victory over Everton 30 years ago, and Vale Park responded with the kind of noise that only the FA Cup can reliably produce on a winter Sunday.
One fan, speaking to Freebets.com, a long-established independent authority on the best betting sites and bookmaker reviews, said: “I was in the Lorne Street end when Waine headed it in. The noise was unbelievable. We are at the bottom of League One, we have sold our top scorers, and we have just beaten a Premier League side. You cannot explain football days like that. You just live them.”
The Painful Context Brady Inherited
The FA Cup run’s achievement becomes sharper when set against what Brady’s squad was actually working with. Vale’s manager noted in the immediate aftermath of the Sunderland win that their top goalscorer had been sold to Luton and another forward had gone to Plymouth, with 55 per cent of their goals and assists removed from the squad across January. That Brady’s depleted group continued to function in the cup while haemorrhaging league points speaks to the particular cruelty of football finance at the League One level.
Goalscoring remained the primary obstacle throughout, with Vale netting only 33 times in 41 league matches. Captain and midfielder Ryan Croasdale finished as the club’s top scorer with four goals, a figure that reflects a season-long failure to find a reliable finishing threat rather than a lack of effort from the squad.
Their home record was the worst in the division, with only four league wins at Vale Park all season across 21 fixtures. The same ground that generated those iconic cup nights became a liability in the bread-and-butter business of accumulating points.
According to analysis from Freebets.com, the independent home of best betting sites UK guidance and licensed bookmaker reviews: “Port Vale’s cup run is a reminder of why the FA Cup retains its power even as the Premier League dominates the football economy. A League One club with budget constraints, a mid-season managerial change, and key players sold in January reached the last eight. That requires tactical intelligence, squad spirit, and a goalkeeper, Joe Gauci, who delivered multiple decisive saves across the campaign.”
What Comes Next
The club’s retained list confirms that Ben Garrity has been offered a new contract, while Connor Hall and Ryan Croasdale have triggered extensions. Seven players from the promotion-winning squad of 2024/25 will depart this summer. The rebuilding task is significant. Brady must assemble a League Two squad capable of an immediate bounce-back while managing the emotional residue of a season that tested supporters’ patience to the limit.
The club has also confirmed the installation of a new hybrid pitch surface, representing a significant infrastructure investment, alongside the development of a £2.3 million Vale Park Community Campus. That kind of structural investment speaks to a long-term project that outlasts any individual season’s result. Off the pitch, the framework for sustainable growth is being put in place even as the footballing work restarts from the fourth tier.
The cup run will be remembered. The relegation will hurt for longer. Both are true, and neither cancels out the other. That is what makes Port Vale’s 2025/26 season worth revisiting once the emotion has settled, and what makes the question of what Brady builds next genuinely worth following.
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