Boxing Day, and my brother is about to get his first taste of the DVS. Originally, the plan is to drop me and my dad off at the ground as there's no public transport today, but the lure of Port Vale obviously proves too much, as he decides the rest of the family can manage without him for a couple of hours. When we park up in Attercliffe, my dad suggests a short detour to see where he used to live as a small boy – though the row of terraced houses has been replaced by a light industrial unit. Such is progress.
My dad is the one person who never really looks forward to Boxing Day matches. Every football fan has their superstitions, and his revolve around never wearing anything new to a match. He always goes in the same outfit, and when any of it needs to be renewed, he tries to break the new item in at a game which doesn't really matter. Usually, that's one of the early rounds of the Johnstone's Paint Trophy (or one of its previous incarnations), but this season that isn't really an option, given that we've made it to the regional final. He even has the same humbugs which he puts back in the tin and brings again the next week if he hasn't eaten them, though that could just be venturing into the realms of the plain weird... Anyway, his theory is that we're never going to do well over the Christmas period, because people are either wearing brand-new jumpers, socks, replica shirts and other paraphernalia they've received as presents, or they're bringing a family member to see us play for the first time.
There must be a load of newbies here today besides Robert, as the concourse in the main stand is absolutely heaving. There aren't too many, on the other hand, who have made the trip over from Burslem, but it's not a bad showing given the lack of trains.
And it seems that my dad's pessimism is about to be proved right when Marc Joseph manages to get himself sent off with twenty-odd minutes gone. Having played David Stockdale into possible problems, he tries to redeem the situation by tugging at the Port Vale attacker, who needs no encouragement to go down. Fortunately, it's outside the area, but as last man he has to go. There's some obvious 'Joseph is no wise man' joke begging to be cracked here, but it hardly seems the time.
However, it's not the disaster it at first threatens to be, and that's because Port Vale appear to have come with the intention of getting a nil-nil draw, and even with the man advantage, they continue to play in the same unadventurous way. They push on a little more in the second half, but still don't cause us too many problems. And then, with about twenty minutes to go, Drewe Broughton latches on to a long ball. From our angle in the stand, we're convinced his shot is going wide, right until the moment it trundles into the bottom corner. He celebrates by kicking over one of the advertising hoardings like a complete girl's blouse, and while the ref is booking him, Robert begins his ritual anxious blowing. He explains it's because he feels less comfortable at one-nil up than he does when there's no score. Meanwhile, the chants of 'we only need ten men' ring out. Vale almost sneak a point right at the end, but Stockdale makes a fantastic save – about the only thing he's had to do all match – and we get away with it.
It's not our best ever victory following a sending-off - that remains the game at Northampton the year we got promoted to Division One, when Guy Branston got his marching orders after ten minutes and we still went on to win – but it's still intensely satisfying. The people who came for the first time can come again – all that about them being unlucky is probably just humbug...
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