Thetownend.com

Hi,

You may know I'm the pre-match reporter for the Port Vale Fans Forum One Vale Fan.

Part of my role is to contact fans of our forthcoming opponents to ask them a few questions and gain their views on the upcoming fixture between our sides in order to produce a report which we release on the site a couple of days prior to the game. Some of you kindly contributed to our reverse fixture article and I wondered if some posters would like to take part by answering some different questions.   

I wondered if up to three of you have a few minutes and would kindly offer your feelings on the game by answering the following few questions;
1. Tell us a bit about yourself & history as a fan?
2. How are your team doing (current form and in relation to the expectation of fans at the start of the season) and where do you think you will finish the season?
3. Who should we watch out for (one or more danger player/s)?
4. What are your thoughts on your manager?
5. Can you tell us up to 3 quirky things opposing fans might not know about your team?
6. Any views on the current Port Vale team & specific players?
7. Did you attend the reverse fixture earlier this season? If so what were your thoughts on the game?
8. Any views & memories of players / managers that have been involved with both teams and which Vale player past or present would you take for your team?
9. A score prediction (and potential scorers for both sides) and what do you expect the attendance to be?
10. Finally can you pass on any decent recommendations for local ‘away friendly pubs’, eateries and the best places to park for our fans travelling to the game?


Please also feel free to include any other information you feel worthy and I will knock it into a report as per the example below regarding contribution from Doncaster fans from a game with them;
http://www.onevalefan.co.uk/2015/02/opposing-views-doncaster-h/

To enable me to produce this in good time I need a reply by Thursday and the report should appear on the website a day or two before our fixture.

Please also let me know if you would like me to include your name on the article and if you are prepared to share one a photo of yourself we can utilise with the article.

Many thanks for your potential support in this matter.

Best Regards,


REP

Who appeared in the last one?  ::)

I believe it was Batch, FreddySTFC and your goodself  ;)

oh did I, thanks.

over to the rest of you. my work here is done.

Me too. Never got a link or copy posted  :(

I'll happily do it. Haven't got time right now but will pop some answers in after our match tonight.

Smashing thanks, I've already had one great contribution so you'd be more than welcome.

The article will appear on our site Friday afternoon or Saturday morning for those interested :)

 Good work mentioning Lucas Magera, who scored his only goal in England at Vale Park.

Ahh, what a coincidence. Didn't realise that! Nice one Reg.

Also he was a PdC signing, nowt to do with Wilson. Thomas Dossevi however.......

Ahh, now why did I think Wilson?  :hmmm: Maybe just the calibre of player being similar to Mr. Dossevi (ie not very good).

Thats smashing thanks so much, three great sets of replies which will appear in an article on onevalefan.co.uk either tomorrow or Saturday morning.

No problem REP. Hope you guys do well for the rest of the season starting after you play us.  :pint:

She may well have been but Magera was a Di Canio signing from the "Throw enough shit at the wall and some of it will stick" policy.

I thought Magera was quality. Seemed to play the game a step ahead of most of our other players & that tended to work against him imo as at times it made him look shit. I remember one game at the CG where he turned his man brilliantly on the half way line & played a perfectly weighted through ball between the RB & CB but the person it was intended for just wasn't on the same wavelength, making it look like an awful pass. He was also superb running the clock down against Wigan in the FA Cup when we beat them 2-1 at the CG.

I watched him enough to know he was garbage. We had players in that team that have played regularly at a higher level since - McCormack, Ritchie, Caddis, Foderingham, Flint et al. You can't tell me he was too good for them.

Magera goes above Mikolanda in the STFC Czech ratings for me.

I wouldn't put him in the Ritchie/Flint bracket but the other 3 are pretty average in the grand scheme of things. They're just fondly remembered because they did well for us. Magera clearly underachieved at Town but he struggled with injuries & anybody who has played the game could clearly see that technically he was excellent. His lack of pace let him down big time though. I always wanted to see him & Kerrouche get a good run up front together as I thought they'd work well but from memory they were rarely on the field at the same time.

For me Magera looked a yard behind the rest of our team at times, and had absolutely no pace in his legs whatsoever, made Akinfenwa look like Usain Bolt.

The first time I saw Lucas, he was terrible, I thought he must be better than that.  It was at Shrewsbury, came on as a sub. He wasn't.  Leon Clarke also played and he was no better, but has shown since that he can play, unlike Lucas.

Some on here used to wheel out the argument, that so and so, is better than those around him which is why he looks crap, for Nathan Delfouneso.  Just goes to show we all watch the same game but see something completely different.

I think as well that Lukas Magera never got into the Czech squad again after leaving us tells us something.

He went on to play for another 3 years at Czech 1st division level and score 28 goals but thats not a great standard of football TBH. Almost certainly not much higher level than L2 here.

What does that even mean? The grand scheme of what? McCormack played for 3 or 4 years regularly in the Championship, Foderingham is playing regularly in the SPL for one of its better sides, Caddis played a few years regularly in the Championship as well. If you can't perform well with these players around you in League Two, its not because you're too good. He may have been technically good but you need to have more than that - the fact his career never went anywhere suggests that he wasn't good enough.

The grand scheme as in how their careers have panned out so far. Fods is playing in a League, that Celtic aside, is of L1 standard. He's a decent goalkeeper but hasn't played at Championship standard yet imo. Macca was decent for Brentford, no more than that & probably hit the C/ship a bit too late to allow himself to have a decent stab at it. Caddis had 1 good season at Brum, was a bit part player after that & now struggles to get into the Blackburn side from what I've seen. Fwiw I wasn't saying these players weren't good players at L2 level, they cleatly were, just that their careers haven't kicked on to the extent that Ritchie & Flints have.
   As for Magera, as I said in one of my previous comments, he clearly underachieved with us but definitely had ability & for whatever reason we weren't able to get the best out of him. To summarise I would say there was definitely a good player in there somewhere & deep down he probably regrets that he didn't take his chance in England. Just my opinion of course& Imcan totally understand why the majority would disagree, I just saw something a bit different in him when I watched him play.

Magera has played in the top league in the Czech Republic since leaving us, and won the Czech FA cup a few years ago, so I’d say (Ritchie aside) his post town career has been at least on-par with the rest of the Di Canio squads

Will also add that the Czech league is currently 13th in the UEFA coefficients, one place behind the Dutch and over twice as high as Scotland (27th). So I doubt it’s a league two level of football, whoever suggested that

What frustrated me is that he could not head for toffee despite being a big old lump and had wading through treacle pace. A flop for sure...

They play in front of an average crowd of under 2,000 and the cup final was watched by a massive 2,500 attendance.

They could play in front of three men and a goat, it’s still a better quality league based on the independent scoring metrics designed to assess the quality of a league

http://www.fkmb.cz/hrac?s=2018&=1&p=553

Listen to Smetana and it conjures up images of Lucas working as a boatman on the Vlatava...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdtLuyWuPDs

That was the semi final :D

Blimey! Finally found someone who actually places any faith whatever in the UEFA coefficients :)

tbf, the goat was the fourth official so not sure he counts :)

Leave him alone...hes just a kid ;)