Port Vale 2012-13

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The club entered the 2012-2013 campaign still in administration from the previous season, but started in remarkable fashion, goals coming thick and fast and points building up nicely. High-profile departures in the summer meant that manager Micky Adams had to rebuild his team from the ground up. His efforts were severely hampered when Keith Ryder’s expected takeover collapsed. The club was instead taken over by Wirral-based businessman Paul Wildes.

In November, the Roy Sproson statue was revealed outside the main entrance. When the club came out of administration later that month, remarkably, they were amongst the promotion favourites. This continued right to the end of the season when they were promoted to League 1 in third place behind Gillingham and Rotherham United. After promotion was secured Paul Wildes resigned as chairman and Norman Smurthwaite took full control of the club.

During pre-season, Hugh Edwards was awarded the title of Honorary Doctor of Staffordshire University in recognition of his contribution to the ceramics industry through Moorcroft and the role he played in helping to introduce the National Minimum Wage and the Working Families Tax Credit as a Trustee of the Low Pay Unit in Government.

Hugh’s passion for Moorcroft pottery began as a law student. Having built a collection of 612 pieces spanning 88 years of Moorcroft history dating from 1897, he helped give the old art pottery a new lease of life when he stepped in to save it from the brink of insolvency in 1986. To enable him to do this, every piece in his collection had to be sold.