A FAMILIAR FACE IN A SEA OF FAMILIAR FACES
I know now that football is 'on the side of the angels'.
If you let it, it can enrich you. Let me tell you how.
There are friends I have, and people whose acquaintance I've made whose paths might never have crossed mine if it wasn't for our love of our club, or our love of the game. By that, I don't just mean that I've found like minds and have bumped into them because of football - there are people whose company and acquaintance I might not have had any cause or opportunity to make in any other way - and how much poorer I would have been!
I'm fortunate to have a pal who is a St. Mirren fan - 'Big Kenny fae Paisley' - and quite honestly, Kenny and myself wouldn't have met in a million years other than through football. Kenny's background, his life, his job - all mean that we probably wouldn't have been moving in the same circles, but I'm glad to say that our shared love of St.Mirren F.C. (they're my 'other' team) has meant that I've a friend who I value enormously, whose perspective on life is refreshing and different from mine.I also know that Kenny is a feller who I'll probably know for the rest of my life.
Another person I might never have come across, except through Port Vale F.C. was Ian White.
Ian passed away on May 15th, and his passing came as a total shock to all who knew him. A good many Port Vale regulars and not a few Stoke City fans will have come across Ian - a firebrand, John the Baptist figure of a feller, who felt and lived life passionately, and who was one of the most committed and devoted chaps I ever came across, both to Port Vale, and to his political ideals.
Ian was a larger than life character. I met him only once, in the 'Crown' in Burslem, before the last home game (vs Wolves) of Vale's last game in Division One. There were about twenty or thirty other people in the room we were in, but I couldn't not notice Ian. He was proclaiming his ideas, to anyone who would listen, and was at times opposed pretty vociferously, but the thing I noticed about him was that he had this disarming, winning smile. Some folk might think he was talking through his hat - but you couldn't help but like him.
At the game, when half time came I was handing out red cards for the red card protest,when Ian sang/called from the front of the Lorne Street Stand, 'Tommy, Tommy, give us a song!' It may not sound like much, but actually it was one of those moments when you feel like you belong - it was a friendly gesture.
I'm afraid I didn't sing - my children have warned me not to. Even in the bath.
Ian did talk some sense - notably on the current direction the Club is taking off the field. Ian was one of the leading lights in the 'Flat Cap March' which along with several hundreds, I participated in. You always knew he was at a game too - you could spot his huge tatty banner 'Sheffield Travelling Valiants'.
It travelled around a fair old bit in his famous Vauxhall Cavalier - which had done enough mileage to get most of the way to the Moon, if memory serves. Ian used to tell a story about how he was rescued on his way to a match when his car left the road and nearly came to grief. None other than Kevin Kent came to his aid. He would also tell of the seasons when he never missed a game, home or away, and was almost sacked from one job as a result. He actually DID lose another job through his devotion to Vale.
His son, Henry was as precious to him as breath, food and water.
Ian was a supporter's supporter. We mourn the passing of greats on the field, but if we take a walk around to the back of the new Lorne Street development, there are the names of people who have loved this Club - the greats off the field. Ian was one of them, and we are all the poorer for his passing.
A few years ago, I went to a Vale game (against Oxford United I think!) and sat in the Family Stand with my son, and my Dad.
I went to buy some drinks, and paused on my way back, and looked at my Dad, chatting to my boy - an empty seat for me. And I could feel the presence of my Grandfather, a Port Vale fan from way back, who died in the mid 1970s - and I knew that the Club would always evoke my family for me. It would always evoke friends I'd laughed and cheered with. I could only really love this club because it was where I belonged. It is why the Club is about so much more than just football.
In these times when people grimly comment on the passing of community, the Club is all about community. The crowd - us - are more than a sea of faces, they're a sea of familiar faces, a community of faces which time doesn't diminish or thin out - faces of those with us now, those with us in the past - but all still with us.
Ian's will always be one of those familiar faces - amid the sea of faces which carries on.
Ian's expressed will for his ashes was that they be sprinkled on the field at Vale Park - a wish that the Club has gracefully agreed to. In a typical turn of phrase, Ian had asked:
"… My ashes shall be sprinkled on Vale Park Burslem Stoke-on-Trent irrespective of cost or legality. i.e. leg it over a hoarding and get me on the pitch before kick-off if you have to…"
For all of us who knew him, Port Vale will always bring about, somewhere in our memories, friends, family, and of course, Ian - his smile, his friendship, and his relentless eagerness for life.
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