Vale Park

Saturday 23 January 2010

Port Vale 0-0 Macclesfield Town

Aerial shot of Vale Park (Bing Maps)

Ratings

Overall Ground Quality : 6/10

Ease of getting there : 8/10

Atmosphere : 6/10

Programme : 8/10 (£2.50 - 74 pages)

View of Action : 7/10

Quality of the game : 6/10

The "football" feeling : 6/10

Chances of coming here for a random game : 7/10

Legroom : 6/10

Surrounding area : 5/10

Overall : 65/100

Welcome to Port Vale F.C

Rear of the Bycars Stand

Rear of the Railway Paddock

The ground from the club car park

Rear of the Hamil Road Stand from the park

Rear of the Lorne Street Stand

The Bycars Stand

The Hamil Road Stand

The Lorne Street Stand

The Railway Paddock

The Lorne Street Stand

The Hamil Road Stand

The Bycars Stand

The Lorne Street Stand

The Hamil Road Stand

"The Wembley of the North" dream

Port Vale 0-0 Macclesfield Town

Vale Park is home of Port Vale. We arrived in Stoke on Trent at 11:45 where we went to Morrison’s Cafe on Festival Park to have our pre-match meal followed by our arrival at Vale Park. We parked the car on Hamil Road, only a few minutes away from the ground and walked around the ground taking pictures of the exterior. After that, we bought our match tickets and walked into the ‘abandoned’ town of Burslem, briefly!

Port Vale formerly played at the Old Recreational ground in Hanley before the construction of Vale Park ‘Wembley of the North’ in 1946 on a previous clay pit and moved to their new home in 1950. It was nicknamed ‘Wembley of the North’ due to the high capacity of 70,000. A railway station was also considered to be built behind the current Bycars Stand but due to the lack of funds both the stadium and railway were never completed. Since then, the ground has been redeveloped including seating in the lower tier of the Railway Paddock, seating in the Bycars Stand, the Lorne Street stand (yet to be fully completed due to funds) and seating in the Hamil Road stand including a new roof formally used by Chester City at the old Sealand Road ground. Vale Park is the 3rd highest football ground in the country at 520 feet above sea level.

The game saw a well defended Macclesfield Town team with constant Vale pressure but the unfortunate outcome was a 0-0 draw.

Overall, our second trip to the Potteries in a month was a trip that I (Ross) have been meaning to do for a while as its one of the last Football League grounds in the Midlands that needed completing and for Adrian, his 4^th visit to Vale Park, and is yet to see a win there to date!