Hi, Obviously a Vale fan here looking forward to visiting the Eitihad for the first time,went to Maine Rd a few times,think we won the last time on a Boxing Day.How things have changed your club has gone into orbit compared to where you were and us well we were never in orbit but we did have a decent Championship side, but due to the massive influx of "Foreign" investment we had no chance of doing anything but going down and down. You may be wondering why if Vale average 4.5k home gates how come 8k plus will be there on Saturday ? Well we very nearly went to the wall last year our last owner bled the club dry of any income,one of his proud achievements was feeding the players on out of date pies from previous games can you believe that and our reputation was at an all time low we just survived relegation to the National league and we were days away from being but into administration,fortunately our new owners Carol and Kevin Shanahan bought the club at albeit a vastly inflated price,rumour has it £4 million, small change to club like yours but an absolute ransome for us.
Vale fans are so grateful that there has been an out pouring of "Love" towards our new owners hence the Super Vale Away Chant you will no doubt hear, Carol has said she misses sitting in the away crowd singing this particular song and Vale fans from all over the country are coming to you as a show of appreciation to the Shanahan family for rescuing our club, we realise we have no chance of getting anything, even a corner will be met with wild celebration ! Our victory will come when the gate receipts are totted up it will mean the Shanahans will get some money back on their initial investment,a draw like this is like winning the lottery for a 2nd division club like us as we get isolated more and more from footballs top table.
Someone mentioned a pre season friendly at Vale Park in the early 70's I was at the game absolute mayhem that day, thank goodness those days are in the past.
Ps Please keep it to single figures, Shite City would love us to get hammered !!!!