Port Vale: Fans queue all night for Swindon Town play-off semi-final tickets

Port Vale fans warmed up for the play-offs by cheering their side to victory at already promoted Exeter on Saturday

Some football fans love the play-offs. Some supporters hate them. And then there are the Port Vale faithful. In their case, it is more of an enduring fascination brought on by most of their modern generation of fans never even having experienced them at all.

The fact is that since the play-offs first became a fixture in English football 35 years ago, Vale have only played in them twice.

In 1988-89, with all ties then played over two legs, Robbie Earle scored in both legs of the final to take John Rudge's side to the old Division Two for the time in over 30 years.

Then in 1993, having been relegated back to the third tier a year earlier, Vale failed to make it back this time - beaten 3-0 by West Bromwich Albion at Wembley.

Roll on to 2022 and Vale are back in the frame again, with a two-leg play-off semi-final against Swindon Town. And, in another throwback to the game of three decades ago, some Vale fans even queued all night to snap up the 2,200 ticket allocation for Sunday's first leg.

"People came in their numbers," Vale director Martin Tideswell told BBC Radio Stoke. "They were queueing from 10pm the night before.

"People accept that there were going to be queues. They brought duvets, chairs and tents. And we gave them coffee and tea in the morning to help keep them warm - and the spirit was brilliant."

The only mild complaint from the cheerful Vale fans in the queue was why they had to be there at all, given the way their team passed up the chance of automatic promotion.

John Rudge, now the club president, is still the only Port Vale manager to lead his side to a play-off final

After taking 25 points out of a possible 27 in a stunning run of little over a month between 12 March and 15 April, Vale had risen to third - and looked favourites to secure a top-three finish, just as they had achieved when they last got promoted from this level in 2013 and went up in one of the automatic positions under Micky Adams.

This time Vale stumbled. They lost three times in a row, beaten by two of boss Darrell Clarke's old clubs Bristol Rovers and Walsall, then at home to Newport.

But they were to become party poopers themselves last Saturday when they stopped the rot by winning at Exeter, to deny the Devon club the title.

Had Vale won, not lost, those three games, they would actually not have only gone up - but done so as champions.

Instead, aside from allowing Rob Edwards' Forest Green to win the title and unwittingly provide the platform for Joey Barton's Bristol Rovers to pull off one of the great final-day climaxes last weekend by pipping Northampton to promotion on goals scored, it has allowed the excited Vale fans the tension of that first tilt at the drama of a play-off in 29 years.

But Tideswell offers a good defence as to why they did not cement that top three finish, reflecting on the disruption caused by being without injured skipper Tom Conlon, as well as the painful loss of manager Clarke, following a close family bereavement, which led to his number two Andy Crosby taking over from mid-February.

"We've been without our captain for half the season and our manager for a good chunk of the season, as well as key players like Jamie Proctor and James Wilson," said Tideswell.

"So to be in this position is absolutely remarkable and testament to the backroom staff, to Darrell, Andy Crosby and the people who have helped to get us to the position where we still have something to play for in the middle of May.

"And it's not just about the players and the management team. There's the ground staff, the kitchen staff, the cleaners, the media team, the kit man, the admin staff and the hospitality people. We're all one team together and it's great to be a part of it."

Carol and Kevin Shanahan completed their buy-out of previous Port Vale owner Norman Smurthwaite in May 2019

Vale fans have their club back

Winning promotion - and there are still three games to go before that can be achieved - would finally complete the upward curve that Vale have been on since owners Kevin and Carol Shanahan took control in 2019, two years after relegation back to the bottom tier.

They had a near-miss at the end of the Shanahans' first season in 2020 when previous boss John Askey had them lying seventh just before the season was curtailed prematurely by the Covid pandemic, only to go three games without a win. That allowed Northampton to claim seventh spot before going on to win promotion at Wembley.

But the message getting through to the boardroom from those cold but hopeful Vale fans under the canvas this week was that "we've got our club back".

"We certainly like to think that," said Tideswell. "And huge credit has to go to the owners Carol and Kevin for the culture they have created.

"Every conversation we have behind closed doors is about what's best for our fans.

"Football is nothing without fans, and Port Vale would be nothing without its supporters.

"After a difficult few years, it's so exciting to be in a position where the club is looking up and not over our shoulders.

"Off the pitch, the club has been transformed. We've still got work to do but we're moving in the right direction."