Foyle double has Vale on the up!
PHIL SHERWIN RECALLS A MEMORABLE PORT VALE PROMOTION IN AN ARTICLE FIRST PRINTED IN 2010...
AFTER the disappointing end to the previous season, when they lost in the play-off final, Vale made certain of automatic promotion to Division One this time by winning eight of their last nine games.
The club went into the game knowing that a win would clinch promotion, but anything less and Stockport County and Plymouth Argyle could have overtaken them.
More than 6,000 Vale fans made the long trek, and they were in good voice despite the pouring rain.
The opening exchanges were end-to-end, but then Vale calmed their fans’ nerves by taking a 14th-minute lead.
Peter Swan headed on a Kevin Kent corner and Dean Glover drove the loose ball home.
David Lowe had a goal disallowed for offside on the half-hour, but the celebrations could virtually begin as Vale went 2-0 ahead six minutes later, when leading scorer Martin Foyle drilled home a loose ball.
That sparked a pitch invasion that was soon quelled.
Ian Taylor knocked an effort just over the bar as Vale dominated against a Brighton side managed by Liam Brady.
After Swan had hauled down Nogan, Dean Wilkins, brother of Chelsea’s Butch, fired a free-kick in off the underside of the bar to make it 2-1 in the 68th minute.
Before Vale nerves could start jangling, though, it was 3-1 just three minutes later.
Lowe broke free before knocking the ball inside to Foyle who lashed it home in fine style.
It was a good job Vale didn’t lose. Plymouth needed that, plus a huge win, and they won 8-1 at Hartlepool – to no avail!
Phil Street, a Vale fan for more than 40 years and originally from Sneyd Green, has chosen this week’s Memory Match.
He remembers: “I was actually on holiday in France at the time, but it was such a big match that I just had to come back for it.
“My son Jimmy and his friend Carl Clayton had travelled down by coach and we had arranged to meet up outside the ground.
“This was in the days before mobile phones, though, and with there being such a large crowd we never did meet up. In the ground, the Vale fans were in pens on the open side, and I was in one and spotted my son in another.
“When the first goal went in there was a huge surge and a minor pitch invasion and Jimmy got squashed at the front.
“The St John Ambulance people whisked him out into a tent at the back to give him some treatment. At first I couldn’t get to him, but managed to in the end.
“I spent almost the rest of the match flitting between the first aid tent and the terraces to let my son know what was going on. With 10 minutes to go, he was feeling fine and was desperate to be let go.
“Thankfully, he was given the all clear and at the end of the game we both poured onto the pitch to celebrate. I am still a season ticket holder despite living in Newport, Shropshire.”
Kevin Kent was in the Vale midfield that day. He says: “Our fans made a hell of a noise during the game and
on the pitch afterwards, celebrating. You could see the tension in their faces when we arrived.
“It took us two years of total and utter dedication to get back where we wanted to be – in Division One as it was called then, the Championship nowadays.
“You cherish and savour every second of a moment like that in football. They only come along every now and then and when they do, it’s very, very special for players and supporters alike.”
Although born in Stoke-on-trent, Kevin played for West Brom, Newport and Mansfield before joining Vale in 1991 in exchange for Gary Ford and £80,000.
He scored seven goals in 138 senior appearances before retiring through a back injury in 1996.
Since then, he has coached at both Vale and Stoke and covered Vale games for local radio.
Peter Swan was the team’s solid central defender that afternoon. He remembers: “It was a brilliant day for everybody involved at the club.
“To win eight of our last nine games was a remarkable achievement. It wasn’t just the 11 who played at Brighton – players came in and proved what a strong squad we had. Everybody worked for that moment and the backroom staff did a magnificent job, whilst the supporters were brilliant all season.”
Peter began his career with Leeds United and also played for Hull City before joining Vale for £310,000 in 1991. He scored eight goals in 138 senior appearances before moving to Plymouth Argyle for £300,000 in 1994. Since hanging up his boots in 2000 he has been in the property business.
Brighton: Rust, Munday, Chapman, Case, Mcgarrigle, Mccarthy, Crumplin, Wilkins, Nogan, Codner (Fox 57), Andrews. Subs: Johnson, Ormerod.
Port Vale: Musselwhite, Sandeman, Tankard, Porter, Swan, Glover, Lowe, Foyle, Kent, Jeffers, Taylor. Subs: Cross, Griffiths, Wood.
Attendance: 15,423 .
BANNED by the BBC and loved by the Queen, George Formby was one of Britain’s biggest stars making 22 movies bearing titles like He Snoops To Conquer and Bell-bottom George, and entertaining Montgomery’s troops in the Sahara, where he declared “Ee, it’s just like Blackpool sands.”
But he worked hard for success, recalling of his early days: “I was the first turn, three minutes, died the death of a dog.”
George Hoy Booth was born in Wigan in 1904 and later adopted his father’s stage name of George Formby. George senior had been in a music hall troupe with a young Charlie Chaplin and encouraged him to try his luck in America.
George left school at seven, unable to read or write, and started as stable boy in Yorkshire and later became an apprentice jockey before turning to comedy and making his professional stage debut in 1921 aged of 16. He was paid the princely sum of £5 a week for a fortnight at the Hippodrome in Lancashire and it was his first step to stardom.
Queen Elizabeth loved the king of the ukulele so much she toyed with becoming President of the George Formby Society and it is claimed she once said she knew the words to his songs Leaning On A Lamp Post, When I’m Cleaning Windows and With My Little Stick Of Blackpool Rock ... and could sing them.
Her Majesty had been won over by the comic after his private performances at Buckingham Palace, and the Windsors were said to be huge fans. In 1941, when the BBC banned the saucy track When I’m Cleaning Windows, branding it a “disgusting little ditty”, George reminded the corporation it was a favourite of Queen Mary’s.
The lyrics of many of his songs were rather saucy though. He sang in Andy The Handyman: “A girl gave me a gold watch. I said ‘It’s rather light, it’s got no works inside it, now surely that’s not right’. She said ‘Now don’t you worry, I’ll give you the works tonight’”.
With his catchphrase “Turned out nice again,” George was Britain’s biggest entertainer in the 1930s and 1940s and was seen as a lovable working-class hero with a goofy grin no-one could resist.
His career took off in 1924, when he introduced the ukulele banjo into his act and fell in love with clog dancer Beryl Ingham. They married two years later and she gave up her career to become his manager.
Beryl helped him to memorise the words of his movie scripts and his songs, because of his problems reading and writing, and George was soon the highest-paid entertainer in Britain earning the equivalent of £1.5
George in 1945 million a movie although Beryl only gave him five shillings a week pocket money. Most of his earnings were spent on their home in Lytham St Annes, near Blackpool, which came to be named Beryldene.
George made movie after movie and his work entertaining the troops during the Second World earned him an OBE in 1946. Basil Dean, head of ENSA (Entertainments National Service Association) remembered him “standing with his back to a tree or a wall of sandbags, with men squatting on the ground in front of him, he sang song after song, screwing up his face into comical expressions of fright whenever shells exploded in the near distance, and making little cracks when the firing drowned the point lines in his songs.”
Beryl was a controlling influence in George’s life and, when she died from leukaemia on Christmas Day 1960 he admitted: “My life with Beryl was hell”.
He became engaged to teacher Pat Howson, more than 20 years his junior, shortly afterwards and bought her a diamond engagement ring and a car.
He knew the engagement would cause a stir, but said: “I’ll be perfectly honest. I’ve got to have somebody to look after me.”
George died of a heart attack on March 6, 1961, just two days before he and Pat were to married. He was just 56 and had planned a honeymoon cruise to the West Indies for them, before moving to a new home near Preston.
Around 150,000 people lined the streets of Warrington to pay their respects at his funeral and the entertainer was buried next to his comic father in Warrington Cemetery. The inscription on his grave reads: “A tradition nobly upheld.”
The George Formby Society was founded shortly afterwards and he became inducted into the Ukulele Hall Of Fame in 2004 with the citation: “He won such love and respect for his charismatic stage presence, technical skill and playful lyrics.”
As George himself would say, “Turned out nice again.”