Bede

There should be, yes.

There doesn't look much surface detail on that. Go look at the level of surface detail on the Sproey statue. It's fabulous. I had it in storage for years whilst we awaited it's erection. Got quite attached to it!

Dunno where you get your tripe from but it's not accurate.

Yeah but the academy has been terrible up until Flitcroft revolutionised it. We never produced any home grown players. Ever. The re-writing of history and claiming glory of other people's efforts really boils my piss.

Aye, I didner want to embarrass him publicly!

Signing Erling Haaland wouldn't help us now!

Well done youth scouting team and Sevvy Aslam for bringing him to the club in 2015.

Somebody re-posted this on Facebook earlier. Just watching it back now. Jesus Christ Carol and Kevin, take a long hard look at where we are now. Why has it come to this?

Welcome back Raymond!

And he is so much better when played there.

Can anyoine explain this recent infatuation with the club and the players trying to raise the fans up for the fight? Where the hell has this nonsense come from? The fans, all things considered, have been tremendous, travelling in numbers despite our terrible season. Who is instigating this <ovf censored>? Give us something to get behind, you lazy bastards.

This is frighteningly accurate. The unfortunate fact is that she won't listen to anybody, and she is going to suffer unneccessarily because of it, despite people's best efforts. The ultimate loser, of course, is the club. It always is.

Yes it was. He's usually sat next to Patrick but he's currently found better things to do than watch Vale! Dunner blame him.

That one move was an utter disgrace. How the hell can seasoned pro's not support a 17 yr old kid trying to outdo 3 defenders alone. Disgusting. Baylee at the moment is the only bright spark amongst a drizzly field full of rotting turds.

My opinion of the team is that yes, it is poor. However, that's not the main problem. The main problem is its lack of balance and its overall, well, weakness. In nearly 40 years of now supporting Vale, I've possibly seen a poorer team in terms of individual talent, but I have certainly never seen a weaker squad. For the first time that I can ever remember, I cannot name you my preferred starting 11 from this squad. We simply cannot field one that in any way looks adequate. From a fully fit squad, any first 11 contains compromises of players being shoe-horned into positions that they are not suited to nor can successfully play. And that is exactly why I am so damn adamant that this DoF and his recruitment team need to sling their hooks back to obscurity. They have failed and are clearly out of their depth.

Well I'm a Shotgun and Firearms licence holder, I know a bloke who owns a tank, I have a mate that is very high up now in the army and has spent the last few years travelling the world training snipers and infantry units in various types of warfare, and my grandson also has a new sword from yesterday's world book day costume. So we're pretty well set for a war. In all seriousness, it is our complete aim to resolve things amicably. If that doesn't happen, then it's down to the will of the people. It's not for me, or any of us, to spoon-feed you what to think. As in the past, we will harness whatever the fans' feelings are and act accordingly. How that looks right now we simply cannot say.

Thanks Doha. I have to stress though that there is a network of damn fine people behind all of this that give so much to make it all happen. Neil Baldwin is my father’s cousin by the way, so I’ll give him a ring to see if he fancies it!

I wrote the following account yesterday but decided to sleep on it before posting. I feel I must now clarify, given the responses since the release of the official statement. OK, so to first explain how this has come about. I am the co-founder of the Black & Gold Group, but also current sitting Secretary of the Supporters' Club. The SC, B&G and NLV have all been interwoven for many years, simply because we are all Vale fans with the same ultimate aims. We all offer differing viewpoints on things but remain active together to provide a widespread view on situations. B&G have remained active, albeit in the background, for many years, mainly as observers and researchers. With my SC hat on, we have been increasingly frustrated with everything at the club, same as everyone else. We therefore requested a committee meeting a couple of months or so ago with the inclusion of Matt Hancock, who has offered himself up to the SC as the conduit between us and the club. The relationship between SC and club has drifted apart as we feel that the club have not wanted to engage with us, and it seems that they have hijacked events that the SC have traditionally held, on behalf of the fans. We all feel that the club are trying to control everything. This meeting was intense. I'm not slow at coming forward with my views, and neither is Paul Dixon, and Matt got absolute pelters. To his credit, he took it all very well. Never argued, never complained, never flounced off or made excuses. He took it all in. Following that meeting, Mark Porter, Paul Dixon, and I have remained in constant contact with Matt, intensely pointing out the level of unrest amongst the fanbase. He could quite easily cease communications with me because I have hardly been complimentary at times, but I have tried to reflect the level of anger, frustration, disappointment, and downright disengagement from the club. Matt has actively sought to understand all of that. We then held another meeting with Matt to delve a little deeper into the supporter discontent. This then led to Matt setting up a meeting with Carol for him relay the mounting concerns to her, with her full attention. It was then mutually agreed that a meeting should be held between us to face this head on. During this period, other fans have also been voicing their concerns in their own ways to the club, so we therefore asked them to join in a collaborative effort. Matt then gave us a list of dates that Carol would be available, and the meeting was set. At no point were we given a time limit, a limit on numbers of members that could attend, or any actual pre-requisites at all. All that was asked towards the date looming was a list of names of those attending. The meeting was initially going to be between us and just Matt Hancock and Carol. A couple of us then debated the merits of also requesting the attendance of Paddy. We decided against it, but then as the meeting approached, we were told that Carol would like him to attend. We ran it by our groups, and it was agreed that he should attend. So, on Monday evening, we held a meeting between 7pm until just gone 10pm. The burning topic, of course, was David Flitcroft. My view remains that I cannot see his position anything other than untenable. A sentiment held by all of us on our side of the table. Let's not dress that up any other way. The overwhelming evidence of fans in the ground, fans in the pubs, fans on social media, forums such as this and radio phone-ins, is that very few have remaining faith in our Director of Football. You must understand that, had we sat down and screamed that Flitcroft is a w***** and he needs to f*** off, a 3-hour meeting would not have lasted 3 minutes. And we would also be doing a dis-service to the other points that needed addressing. We went into the meeting well researched, with a formal agenda from which to raise our points. After lots and lots of debate around the obvious, we then discussed the other topics; those being the communications coming out of the club, the problems with ticketing, the matchday supporter facilities and overall 'experience' and the potential for better fan engagement with the club going forward. The club seemed surprised at some of the issues raised. They did admit failings in communication, they also saw a different viewpoint on the other topics that they had not considered. Above all else, they appeared genuinely shocked and saddened at what we were telling them, in terms of the overall disconnect between fans and club. Now, we all know that admitting failure, and expressing shock and sadness at things is all well and good, but they need to let their actions do the talking. We hope that they now understand that loud and clear. It's over to them to deliver results. So please let me make it abundantly clear. We recognise that fans are not happy. This season, we have seen fans fighting amongst themselves in the stands. We have seen much anger directed at Flitcroft, at our players for abject performances. We have seen growing complaints against the disparity of ground improvements. We have an utterly unworkable relationship between the Supporters' Club and the club. We have seen an alarming lack of respect shown to us fans by the club, not least by way of Carol's letter, David Flitcroft's Podcast, and the ignorance displayed towards our concerns at the last fans' forum. We are taking those issues to the club because they all need to be fixed. Do not think for one moment that we are easily pacified. But we must be logical. We cannot just rock up with a list of demands. There will have to be compromise and understanding from both sides. The first step in that healing process is to meet and hit the problems head on. Monday's meeting was exactly that. We don't have any answers, or results to report back on, from one solitary, intense meeting. But it is the start of some much needed honest and frank dialogue. How this pans out is yet to be decided. We've been in much worse states. We have battled to remove two rogue owners in the last 13 or so years. These owners are not rogue. But it's fair to say they have misaligned their focus. Please support us in regaining that. And please understand our respect for the Shanahan family, despite all our current differences. We've hopefully now opened doors and we look forward to the club holding much more open dialogue with the wider fanbase.

Happy to prove you wrong Paul. Black & Gold have continued to exist since its inception back in about 2008/9, in the background, to gauge fans' feelings and I suppose judge the performance of the club. We have an excellent source of research to delve deeper into things. Mark Porter is the chair of the SC and, until recently, the meetings were held on the final Thursday of each month. However, we have just changed that to bi-monthly to allow us to have more regular committee meetings to allow us to operate better. Sadly, our website got hacked and damaged so we are struggling for an official means of communications whilst our new one is currently being built. (I'm the SC secretary by the way) Tell you why we represent you? We listen at meetings and we listen to fans in the stands, in the pubs, on social media and on forums such as this. We represent you by collectively discussing what we can do within our powers as supporter groups. That has led to lots of very frank dialogue with the club over the past couple of months, resulting in this meeting to hit it all face on with the people at the top. Yes, this meeting was face to face. No, we have not been pacified and nobody, not a single person, has changed their views on David Flitcroft or the disconnect between fans and club. I'm absolutely astounded at the bizarre criticisms that we've 'had our bellies tickled' and other such nonsense. As a result of our initial meeting, the club now fully understand the deep-rooted issues the fans have. It is the first step in a long road ahead. There will, of course, be further communication back to the fans, no doubt from both sides, but we also have to be pragmatic and sensible. We will do nothing knee-jerk. The fans have had faith in those groups to act for the betterment of the club in the past. We ask for the same again.

By meeting them, wasn't he referring to meeting the low expectations, not meeting fans?

Caramel Latte, actually.

As a project manager myself, I strongly condemn his ability! We could do with some extra Stewards though

If we go down and Stoke also go down, he won't ever be able to attend a Vale game again.

Not a cat in hell's chance for me.

No, fit and available, but not selected.