Phil Sherwin: Struggle for form has led to dilemma
I’m sure the club would love to offer another cheap deal to supporters, similar to last year’s successful Vale 5,000 initiative, which saw 6,400 fans sign up.
But with the best will in the world, we would not sell the same amount this time now that League Two football looks likely next season.
Obviously, how many less we would sell depends on how good our finish to the season is because people largely only go on recent results.
A team that has a poor first half of the season and rallies to finish 12th has far happier fans than one that starts off well and tails off. It would be better for sales if we could go on to achieve the former.
Even then, I don’t think we would sell the same number, so I would suggest increasing season tickets to around £229 for adults and advertise them as ‘less than a tenner a game’. That way, we could afford a drop in sales of a quarter or so and still get the same money.
I believe departed commercial manager Mike Aldridge had a lot to do with the success of the Vale 5,000 campaign, so it remains to be seen who comes up with what this time around. It certainly won’t be an easy decision for anyone to make.
Hopefully, we can finally start playing football again tomorrow after all the postponements of recent weeks.
It will be a difficult game at Brentford because they are flying and have only lost one home game.
But what better way to test our unbeaten record – even if it is only two games?
With no David Howland in the team, and no Dave Brammer either after his operation the other day, we should finally see Adnan Ahmed in a Vale shirt.
Half of his month’s loan is up already and he hasn’t played a game yet, but as long as the bad weather doesn’t return he still has a possible four games to get under his belt.
It’ll be nice to see Marc Richards again as well. Through a combination of suspension and injuries (he would probably have missed the postponed games anyway), he’s only played one game since sitting down to his Christmas dinner.
For those fans who are going down to Brentford, don’t forget the away end is now the two-tiered stand opposite where we were the last time we played there. This is because the home fans prefer to be where the away fans used to be housed.
The same happened at Notts County, but not here at the Vale because of the powers that be.
I’m sure our fans would prefer the Hamil End and its better facilities, given the choice.
