40 years as a Port Vale supporter
Many people ask how it is that we Scandinavians are so interested in English football in general and how I am so interested in Port Port when I visit England. Well, now in the month of January it is 40 years ago that I started to support Port Vale. Here is an article that tries to answers some of these questions.
How did you start to support Port Vale ?
Port Vale-West Ham in the FA cup on January 13th 1973 were on the pools coupon in Sweden. Didn’t fancy any of the big teams of the day (Liverpool, Leeds, Arsenal etc) and I wanted to support a team that hardly anyone else in Sweden supported. I liked the name of Port Vale and it did have a nice touch to it. It didn’t have the city’s name in it, either.
In the pre-internet days it was difficult to get information about the team. You could perhaps get the results and a league table a couple of times per month. Things have really changed. I have subscribed to match day programs since the 1989-90 season and I have quite a number of programs in my basement now.
People have asked me if I thought that Port Vale played close to the sea and had a harbour (port) nearby, but I knew that Stoke-on-Trent were in the middle of England !
Is English football popular in Sweden and other Scandinavian countries ?
Yes, it is. A lot of people were brought up with English football on Saturday afternoons on TV in the late 1960’s and the teams became household names. It was quite common that when young people were going out on Saturday nights, they gathered first to watch the football match which began at 4 p.m in Sweden before they went to discos and bars. This all changed in the 90’s when we got more channels and satellite matches. Tipsextra ceased to exist in 1995.
I have to say that English football is probably even more popular in Norway, perhaps due to the lack of success of their national team. And when one goes to Premier League matches in London you hear a lot of Scandinavian languages being spoken. A Port Vale supporters club in Norway existed in the 90’s and they had about 50 members at their peak. And I know that Arsenal Supporters Club in Sweden have a full-time employee that take care of ticket requests, souvenirs etc.
I have to admit that I enjoyed English football a lot more in the pre-Premier League days when there it wasn’t so much money in the game and hardly any foreign players. That genuine working class football is gone today, at least in the top division. I mostly enjoy reading books about the football of yesterday. About the now defunct teams etc.
How did Tipsextra come about ?
It all started in 1969 when we also had only two TV channels. There was nothing on the TV on Saturday afternoons and someone came up with the idea to broadcast English football. People had a lot of interest in English football since it was English matches on the pools coupon during the winter break in Sweden. The program was called Tipsextra (Poolsextra).
Said and done, people went over to England and bought matches live from England.. The first match broadcast live in Sweden was Wolwerhampton-Sunderland and Hugh Curran was the first goal scorer and history was written. Sweden had only the rights to show matches from the Midlands so those teams got a lot of supporters in Sweden and Scandinavia. And I have to admit that Stoke City got a lot of Swedish supporters in 1970’s with ex-Vale coach Mike Pejic among them.
The Port Vale-Tottenham match in 1988 were shown in Scandinavia and it was then when Vale got a lot of supporters in Scandinavia and the Watford match in following round was shown, too, on TV.
First Vale match you watched in England ?
The first match I watched in England were Port Vale-Sunderland early in May 1988. Sunderland was managed by Denis Smith then and it was one of the very few seasons that Sunderland has played outside the two top divisions. Port Vale lost 0-1.
Are there many Vale supporters in Scandinavia ?
We have started up a Facebook group and we are about 30 members from Sweden, Norway, Finland and Denmark. Most of members are +30 and started to support the team after the Spurs game in 1988.
Any particular proud Vale moment ?
Port Vale had a lot of great moments in 90’s which I only have read about. There is one proud “live moment” that I have got. It was in Euro 1992 that was played in Sweden. I attended Sweden-England in Stockholm at Råsunda stadium. And I spotted a Port Vale flag in the English section and that made me pretty proud to see that there were Vale fans in the crowd, too.
Which is your favorite all-time player in Port Vale ?
I have to say Andy Jones since he was the beginning of excellent signings by John Rudge that the club could sell on to other clubs for a substantial fee. I never saw him play for Port Vale, but I watched a game when he played for Charlton later in his career.
Do you write about Port Vale ?
Yes, I write on an internet site where supporters about various teams write and publish articles about their teams. In League Two there are people who write about Plymouth, Barnet, Bradford, Oxford AFC Wimbledon. The Premier League teams have the most editors.
How did you start with that ?
My wife likes to sleep late in the morning and I have plenty of spare time to write. I had some contact with the Barnet editor on the website and I wrote an article for his site. That gave me an interest to start to write about Port Vale in 2010. I have now written for the site for over two years. There are pre-match articles, match reports and feature articles. I have about 200-300 readers on the match staff and +1.000 readers in feature articles like an interview I did with Tom Pope.
The site can be find at www.svenskafans.com/England/PortVale.
I don’t really have the energy to follow my Swedish team Hammarby IF nowadays since I started to write about Port Vale. I live and sleep Port Vale and try to keep me informed regarding loan signings, injuries and other things. Now that we are out of administration it will be hopefully be easier to write.
Any Swedish Port Vale connections ?
Three Swedes have been playing for Port Vale with various degree of success, it’s Janne Jansson, Ville Viljanen and Tobias Martinsson.
Martin Foyle played in Sweden in his late teens. Actually, he played in the area where ex-England Sven-Göran Eriksson was born. Tim Parkin played for Malmö FF a couple of years after they lost the European Cup Final versus Nottingham Forest. And I have seen Bob Hazell play a pre-season match in my hometown Holmsund when he was with QPR.
My hometown of Holmsund (pop 5.000) had one season (1967) in the topflight in Sweden. In the mid 80’s they signed three Englishmen for a season of football in the Third Division. The first one was Stuart Gibson who later became head of the Youth Academy at Plymouth Argyle, the second one was Mark McNeil who married a Swedish woman and stayed in Holmsund.
The third one was Vinnie Jones of Wimbledon and Hollywood. He was 21 at the time and he was already very tough to play against on the pitch. But as he was tough on the pitch, he was the opposite of it outside the pitch. He was known to be very calm and enjoyed to go fishing a lot.
Are there any big difference between football in Scandinavia and England
I have to say that English clubs are run much more professionally then in Sweden regarding all the things around the club. Programs, club shop, souvenirs, web site etc. I support Hammarby IF in Sweden which has between 5-10.000 spectators at the matches depending if they are in the premier , but Port Vale are still better run then Hammarby.
Another big difference it the manager job. In Scandinavia he is only responsible for training, tactics etcetera. Player recruitment, negotiations etc is made by a sport director. They cooperate of course but the sport director has the final word. They have tried to have an English system sometimes, but it has never worked.
Good pubs / restaurants in Stoke-On-Trent.
There are a lot of good pubs in Burslem and I don’t want to mention any of them. None mentioned and none forgotten. But I do enjoy and go out and eat at Portofino Restaurant in Hanley which is pretty close to Quality Inn Hotel where I usually stay when in town.
This was about it. If there is any more questions, please feel free to send me an e-mail at tomas.silfver@sodertalje.se
