wurzel valiant

Lucky enough to have seen him play and also seen him in the theatre doing his "evening with Jimmy Greaves" show. He was a brilliant footballer and not far behind as a comedian. His footballing anecdotes were hilarious and delivered with great comic timing. RIP Greavsie.

Rochdale were far superior to Forest Green as an attacking unit and therefore much harder to defend against. Forest Green played ponderous possession football with no penetration and by the time they were able to get a cross in the Vale defence and midfield were back in the penalty area which became congested. As a result the Forest Green forwards were closely marked and had no space to move in. Contrast this with the first two Rochdale goals where the wide player delivered quality crosses into the box which were sufficiently far enough out to prevent the keeper from cutting them out and because the crosses were delivered early, the box was not congested, giving Beasley space to make a run to attack the ball. Admittedly the last goal was a defensive shambles but I think credit is due to the quality of the opposition rather than heaping all the blame on some of our defence.

Moved to Stoke from Manchester in 1960 as a 7 year old when my dad took a job at Michelin. First game was in Sept that year against Chesterfield. Vale won 7-1! If only they could have maintained that level of performance.