The Wonder Of P.V.F.C.: Carlisle United Vs Port Vale 5th January 2008

Lee Sinnott sets great store by statistics but, for the sake of his sanity, shouldn’t dwell on the fact his team are now Vale’s worst since three points for a win was introduced 27 years ago.
The previous holders of the dubious honour were the class of 1983-84, who were relegated from League One (then Division Three) after new boss John Rudge failed to halt a slide which had started under John McGrath. That side, remarkably, managed only six points before Christmas. However, a mid-season rally lifted them to 19 points from 25 games, two better than the current squad have managed from the same number of matches. It is becoming ever harder to believe this team won’t share the fate of the 1983-84 side and end the term with relegation to the basement division.
Sinnott is planning major changes by January 31, but being nine points adrift with more games played than their rivals is fast making his task mission impossible. There would have been at least some reason for hope had they claimed a win, or even a point, from Saturday’s trip to promotion-chasing Carlisle after leading 2-0 at the break. The manner of the defeat was cruel to the Vale faithful, particularly as their side also blew a two-goal lead on their way to a 3-2 defeat in this fixture last season. Back then, the possibility of relegation was merely a cloud on the horizon. A year on and Vale are getting soaked to the skin. However, their failure to win is not for want of trying.

Sinnott was tearing his hair out at the defending, but resisted the temptation to single out individuals. He said: “The easiest thing I could have done over the last nine weeks or so is come up to you gentlemen, or say in the dressing room, ‘you are a *^!@**! and you have cost me the goal. It is the easiest thing in the world to do, I have been there and been on the other side of the fence. “Players know when they make mistakes, and I knew when I had made a mistake. “But it is counter-productive for a manager to come in and say ‘I am big and hard’. It has always been expected in football to say to a player, ‘right, you are the problem, you have cost me and cost everyone else’. “No. It is about knowing how to win games and set up a winning mentality. To set up that mentality, a manager can’t make it ‘me, me, me’, which means ‘I didn’t make a mistake’, he is the problem and he cost us.
“Successful teams are all in it together. They have an ethos which is a bit like the Three Musketeers – ‘one for all and all for one.’
There wasn’t much of the Three Musketeers about Vale’s second-half collapse, although there was a certain swashbuckling manner about the way they played for 15 minutes or so after taking the lead through Paul Harsley on 28 minutes.

Despite having the wind in their favour, Vale had started nervously, but seen Carlisle blow their only clear chance of the half, on 24 minutes, when the unmarked Danny Graham planted a six-yard header wide. Vale made them pay with their first dangerous attack as Mark Salmon wriggled free before playing in Adam Eckersley down the left. He crossed beyond the back post where the ball was heading for a goal-kick until Danny Glover acrobatically hooked it back across goal. Keeper Kieren Westwood was stranded and Harsley did the rest as he swept home from two yards. Like a shy teenager snogged by the prom queen, Vale’s confidence rocketed as they began to believe they weren’t there just to make up the numbers.
They started to pass the ball around and, although their second goal flattered them on the balance of the half, no-one could argue with its quality. Jeff Smith’s corner was hammered clear to Mark Salmon on the right of midfield and he held off his marker before sending a 40-yard crossfield ball over the last defender and into Danny Whitaker’s path. The midfielder stepped around the keeper before drilling the ball, left-footed, inside the post.

The two-goal lead was all the more remarkable as Vale had only one fit senior striker, Glover, who played as a lone striker with Whitaker just behind in a 4-5-1 formation. However, the scoreline didn’t save them from a half-time rocket from Sinnott. He said: “I had a go at my players at half-time. We found ourselves 2-0 up, but I thought we were fortunate to be in that position. “But I said to them, ‘maybe because of the way games have gone lately, you are getting your bit of luck’. But I said, ‘if you perform in the second half in the way you did in the first, you will lose this game’.”
He didn’t take any pleasure in being proved correct, particularly as his prediction began to come true just five minutes after the break when Zigor Aranalde’s long throw was flicked on at the near post for substitute Luke Joyce to bundle over the line. Vale did have a chance to go 3-1 up, on 57 minutes, when Salmon slid the ball through to Glover, but the striker over-ran the ball enough for Westwood to make a brave save. Glover was soon joined up front by a fellow 18-year-old as Sinnott threw centre-half Charlie O’Loughlin into the attack for the final 26 minutes. However, the switch had no time to work as, within a minute, Graham walloped a long ball from just inside his own half and Simon Hackney got goal-side of Mark McGregor.
The ball sat up for the former Nantwich forward, who crashed a volley past Joe Anyon from 16 yards.
Sinnott said: “I thought Charlie would help us from corners, but it was more from open play, so that hopefully the ball wouldn’t keep coming back. That was the last thing we wanted, especially as they had the wind, as we did in the first half. “We wanted him to be more of a physical presence up there, but, let’s face it, the second goal was a long punt from 50 yards. “Their player got behind us and, bang, it was 2-2.”
Carlisle’s winner, four minutes later, wasn’t much more complicated as Joe Garner gathered the ball on the right before sending over a deep cross. Hackney was unchallenged to meet the ball with a left-foot volley, and made no mistake as he hammered the ball back across goal and inside Anyon’s far post from 14 yards.
That appeared to be game over, but Vale rallied and could have snatched a late equaliser on 80 minutes when O’Loughlin met substitute Craig Rocastle’s inswinging free-kick with a glancing header which was turned over by Westwood. The youngster came even closer five minutes from time when he rose to meet McGregor’s cross and sent a header wide, from 12 yards, with Westwood beaten. A narrow defeat away to a side who have won nine of their 11 league home games is no disgrace. However, Vale’s second-half ordeal was more evidence of the problems Sinnott faces.
A look back in the history books does offer some encouragement as the 1983-84 relegation side spent only two years in the basement division before claiming promotion under Rudge and then reaching the Championship in 1989. Those are high standards for Sinnott to try to match. At least the possibility offers some hope in the depth of Vale’s bleakest season in years.

Final Score Carlise United 3 - 2 Port Vale

Port Vale Line Up