Valiants,
Kevin & I moved our business to Burslem ten years ago and fell in love with a community.
A community that had a football club at the very heart of it.
We bought this football club almost five years ago because we fell in love with Port Vale.
We became season ticket holders and travelled home and away for five seasons.
When we bought the club in May 2019 we did so from a situation where the relationship between the fans and the club’s owner had fallen to such a point that he was willing to take the club into administration, for the third time since the turn of the millennium.
At the asking price that was demanded, no one wanted to buy the club.
The club had just managed to survive relegation from the Football League. Had it gone into administration it would have started the season on -15 points.
I felt the community both needed and deserved to have its football club exist. Burslem would have lost its heart and the community would have lost its home where memories have been made and connections would have been lost.
The fans fought valiantly to get Norman to sell and only Kevin and I were willing to buy it. We bought it out of respect to supporters and to create a football club that served its community giving people a reason to be proud of their team and their club once again.
When we became the owners we found a club that hadn't had any meaningful investment in twenty years. The stadium hadn’t changed since Bill Bell built the Lorne Street stand. The club needed love and investment. When the players trained they had to get changed in the matchday changing rooms, we had two poor training pitches and the same match pitch for the last twenty years.
Before a ball was kicked we had to bring the stadium to a level where it could get a safety certificate so that fans could come to watch the match.
We were a club that had a poor reputation in the football industry. A tired club that only stood out because there is no actual place called Port Vale.
We did well in our first season that was curtailed by the emergence of the coronavirus pandemic.
Thankfully and amazingly 4000 fans paid for their season tickets knowing they wouldn't see any live football that season, they decided to keep their money in the club. Kevin and I paid for everything else.
During the pandemic we delivered over half a million meals to local families across Stoke-on-Trent who were trapped in their homes, not because it was easy but because it was the right thing for us to do.
On the pitch during that season (our second season (the one behind closed doors)) performances and results started to go poorly and we were in the threat of being relegated out of the Football League. I realised that I needed someone to help me with the football side of the club. I knew what I wanted the football club to stand for and mean in the community and that I wanted a team that brought success to the area but I had no contacts or knowhow to do it.
During my first manager search, Colin Garlick introduced me to Dave Flitcroft. Dave and I spent over four hours on our first call talking and discussing ideas around football and what a good football club should look like. Dave understood the football industry inside out and aligned with my values. The only issue was Dave wasn’t working in football and had no plans to be. He had stepped away from football to be with his family. He was working alongside his brothers in their family business and spending more time with his wife and three sons. I knew that Dave was the right man to help me build this football club towards where I wanted it to go.
I asked Dave to be my Director of Football on a part time basis. He went away to think about it. I didn’t want anyone else to be in this role and I still don’t.
When he accepted, Dave knew that he was coming to this club to achieve certain targets:
A) Bring in a manager and an assistant manager to keep the club in the Football League.
B) Get the club promoted to League One in the next three years. To do that he needed to:
- Build and develop a backroom staff to get us to League One
- Build a squad to get us to League One
C) Build a recruitment department and create a player trading model where we bring players in and sell them on for profit later.
D) Turn our Academy round from being one of the worst academies in the country into becoming high performing and productive. Giving young local lads a chance to have careers in football and make this club proud. To do this we would need to:
- Sell players to Category 1 Clubs
- Bring players through the Academy into the First Team
He achieved A by bringing in Darrell Clarke and Andy Crosby.
He achieved B in his first 15 months by bringing in Dean Whitehead and Daryl Taylor. He brought in 22 players either permanently or on loan and we got promoted at Wembley.
He has achieved C by bringing in Tommy Johnson and growing a recruitment infrastructure that has sold 8 players that he has brought in through four windows.
He has achieved D through bringing in Will Ryder and working with him to rebuild our academy which within less than 2 and a half years has sold 2 players to category one clubs, handed seven first team league debuts and four pro-contracts so far.
The money that he has generated for this Football Club has paid for his wages to date many times over.
During our promotion season Darrell had his personal tragedy, Dave and I supported him with all our heart. We gave him everything that we could for him to heal from an unthinkable pain. We became bonded to Darrell in a way that we never could have expected when he came to the club. We couldn't help him heal anymore whilst in the position of manager. We had to make an incredibly difficult decision that was in the best interests of Port Vale. Dave went above and beyond both personally and professionally to support him.
Since arriving in League One, two years ahead of schedule, we have set further targets to achieve as a club.
E) Build a training facility at the club that wouldn’t look out of place in the Championship.
F) Get the match pitch to a Championship standard.
G) Attract best-in-class loans from the Premier League’s best clubs.
H) Have a successful cup run.
I) Stay in League One.
[E] He has led the design of the Training Zone which the players change in with a physio room, boot room and ice baths as well as a new first team office for the coaching staff - both of which have been built. On top of this, he has created plans for a gym and offices overlooking the training pitches with work set to start this year.
[F] He has worked with pitch consultants to build the club a three-stage strategy for improving the main pitch involving drainage, irrigation, and DESO stitching that will take place over three summers. The first of which was completed Summer 2023.
[G] Through his work developing our facilities and football product he has been able to attract top players from Premier League clubs. This season he has worked with and been trusted by Manchester United, Liverpool, Tottenham, Brighton, Sheffield United, Crystal Palace, Nottingham Forest. Having built something here at Port Vale that all of these clubs felt that our club would be the best place for their development because of the football that we play and the setup we have here at the club to look after these players.
[H] This season we reached the quarter-finals of the League Cup for the first time in this club’s history.
[I] We managed to stay up last season and will be doing everything that we can to do that again this year.
Earlier this season Dave took the difficult decision to leave his family’s business so that he could commit all his working time and energy to Port Vale. He has worked tirelessly the past three years to the benefit of the football club - He has always made himself available at fans forums, podcasts or press interviews where he has been open and willing to answer any question asked of him.
Since I became Chair of Port Vale I have made mistakes. Appointing Dave Flitcroft is not one of them. I am a human who is always trying to do her best, to learn from my mistakes, grow as both a person and a leader, and act in the best interests of Port Vale Football Club. Dave Flitcroft lives by that same code and that is why he is this club’s Director of Football. His appointment without doubt has helped me bring a lot of my vision to life. He has changed the way Port Vale is viewed within the industry and is a driving force as to why the club has come so far so quickly.
We have twenty years of missed progress to catch up on and it won’t happen overnight. It won’t always be smooth sailing and we won’t always get it right.
The last time the fans wanted someone out of the club this badly it was because a man only took from the club, he didn’t care if it succeeded or it died, and his time at the club damaged both its reputation and its future. None of that can be accused of Dave Flitcroft. The personal attacks have to stop. We must come together as a football club to support the team to keep us in the league. We have come so far together and there's a lot further to go.
Kevin and I bought this club out of respect for the supporters, we have brought people in to work very hard alongside us to help make this club a success. Those people deserve your respect.
We are interviewing potential new managers at the moment and they are looking to see if this is the sort of club that they want to join. When the new manager arrives he will need the backing of the supporters, the board and the team to give him the best chance of being a success.
We will learn from this and we will grow from it as a football club and as a community.
Carol