Clarke hat-trick v Port Vale In ‘78

Big ask but can anyone remember the order the goals went in in the second half of that 6-2 win on Boxing Day?

Currently looking into goal sequences in our matches and this one is proving elusive.

Chronicle report is comprehensive in the first half but then it reads like the reporter (Lodge?) went home and asked someone else who scored the other goals.

Thanks for any help you can offer.

 

If no one else helps I have the seasons programmes at home so can check the following one.

 

I was at the match, but can't remember, sorry.

 

The match programmes don't help either. Grimsby was supposed to be the next match, but it was postponed (famously becoming the last home match promotion party). The one after that was Scunthorpe, which was also postponed, but the programme was reused with a wrap around. The only mention of the Port Vale game is in the facts and figures section, where only the home scorers (without times or order, just a 1, 2 or 3 next to their name) are shown. Turvey Tyke is your best bet.

 

Turvey Tyke is who I'm working with. Thanks for looking anyway. Not sure what else to do about it. At a dead end other than perhaps contacting a Staffordshire newspaper.

 

I didn't start my scrapbooks until 1980/81, otherwise I may have been able to help. I kept match report cuttings and didn't just use the Chronicle. I often saved Morning Telegraph and Green 'Un reports as well.

 

Have you tried looking at all the Port Vale home programmes since. One of them may have regurgitated the scoring order in a fixture history feature.

 

There's an off chance there might be a retrospective in a modern-ish programme like Dave Copping used to do, but there's no way to know which one without trawling through them all.

 

Only thing I can remember was that it was 3-1 at half time, which to my nerdy mathematical tendencies I found interesting.

 

I thought Alistair Millar, Tommy Graham and Alan Little scored our goals (at the Kop End) to have us leading 3-1 at the break, with Allan Clarke then scoring a second half hat trick. But my memory isn't what it was, so I'm probably wrong.

 

According to the Chron, Clarke got 1in the first half, two in the second - but whether they came 5th and 6th out of the 8, or later is anyone's guess.

 

I told you my memory wasn't that great these days, mate!

 

I seem to remember Ali Millar scoring from a direct free-kick with the outside of his left foot as it was from the 'wrong' side of the pitch - but then again I could be completely wrong (I usually am!) I seem to also remember that it was towards the ponty (this also could be wrong)

 

I was there and that was one of the best free kicks I've ever seen. He just stood next to the ball and wafted his left big toenail at it. The ball floated over the wall like a satellite orbiting a flat earth, then dipped suddenly and nestled in the net. The keeper never even knew he'd taken it, and didn't even attempt to throw his cap at it. In fact, to this day the keeper thinks it was 5-2 because he still doesn't accept that the free kick actually happened.

 

The more I think about it, this seems to be spot on.