In English football, the Potteries derby is the local derby between the two major clubs in the city of Stoke-on-Trent – Port Vale and Stoke City, first contested in 1882. Port Vale plays at Vale Park whilst Stoke play at the bet365 Stadium, the two grounds are separated by roughly . The fans of each club both consider the other to be their main rivals; this has led to a heated atmosphere at these matches. One study in 2019 ranked it as the joint-28th biggest rivalry in English professional football, level with the Manchester derby. The two teams have met in 92 competitive first-team fixtures, including 44 English Football League, six FA Cup and two Football League Trophy fixtures, with the remaining 40 meetings coming in regional cup competitions.
Since 1919, the two clubs have been in the same league for 22 seasons, with Vale finishing higher than Stoke in seven seasons. Stoke have spent most of their history playing in a higher division than Vale. Vale have had only five seasons playing at a higher level than Stoke.
Stoke-on-Trent is the least populous city to have two Football League clubs: Bradford, Cardiff, Coventry, Hull, Leeds, Leicester and Newcastle upon Tyne are all larger cities that contain just one league club. In terms of support, the northern towns of Burslem and Tunstall are Port Vale strongholds, whilst Stoke City enjoy greater support in the other four towns of the city (Fenton, Hanley, Longton and Stoke-upon-Trent) and in the area overall.
History
Early years (1882 to 1919) The two clubs have long league histories, with Stoke City's officially stated founding date being in 1863 and Port Vale claiming to have been formed in 1876.A Potter's Tale: The Story of Stoke City, Wade Martin, , 1988The Valiants' Years: The Story of Port Vale, pages 4–13, Jeff Kent, , 1990, Witan Books; The Port Vale Record 1879–1993, page 4, Jeff Kent, , 1993, Witan Books; The Potteries Derbies, page 4, Jeff Kent, , 1998, Witan Books; and What If There Had Been No Port in the Vale? Startling Port Vale Stories, pages 18–33, Jeff Kent, , 2011, Witan Books. The first derby game was played at Westport Meadows on 2 December 1882, in the second round of the Staffordshire Senior Cup. Vale were complete unknowns, and so pulled off a surprise by managing a 1–1 draw with their more established rivals-to-be. No details of the match were recorded, though The Staffordshire Sentinel did mention the match, along with the comment that it was "a spirited game". Stoke won the replay seven days later 5–1 at the Victoria Ground, with George Shutt scoring four of the goals. Vale won the North Staffordshire Charity Challenge Cup in 1883 to establish themselves as the primary local challenger to the dominance of Stoke. The first meeting in a national competition came on 15 October 1887, with a George Lawton goal on the hour mark giving Stoke a 1–0 home win in the first round of the FA Cup. It took Vale 17 attempts to register their first victory over Stoke, which they finally did in a friendly on 29 March 1890, winning 2–1 in front of 7,000 spectators. By then, Vale had already achieved victory over Stoke in the courts after suing them in county court over the registrations of Bill Rowley and George Bateman, which had caused bad feelings between the two clubs. A friendly in 1893 was advertised as "the championship of the Potteries". Stoke had to pay £20 to charity after being sued by Vale when Rowley had a rib broken in a friendly between the two clubs and Vale again successfully sued Stoke when Rowley and Bateman walked out on their contracts to play for Stoke instead of Vale.
Stoke were founder members of the English Football League in 1888. Though Vale became founder members of the Football League Second Division in 1892, Stoke remained in the First Division until 1907. With the two teams playing in different divisions of a structured league competition, interest in seeing the two clubs play each other in friendlies and local cup competitions decreased, whilst Stoke occasionally only deemed it necessary to send reserve players to play the Vale as crowds for the derby fell to as low as 300. The two teams were meanwhile drawn to face each other in both the Birmingham Senior Cup and Staffordshire Senior Cup for four successive years from 1900 to 1903. Both clubs were forced to resign their Football League memberships due to financial troubles in 1907 and 1908, meaning that scheduled Second Division derby matches on 7 September 1907 and 4 January 1908 never took place. The rivalry entered the literary world in Arnold Bennett's 1911 novel The Card, in which Knype (based on Stoke) and Bursley (based on Vale) "engaged as much in the pursuit of dividends as in the practice of the one ancient and glorious sport which appeals to the reason and the heart of England".
Stoke-on-Trent federalised in 1910, meaning the two clubs became Stoke-on-Trent borough rivals for the first time. However, at this point, Vale were competing with Stoke Reserves in the North Staffordshire & District League and the Stoke first-team were in the Birmingham & District League and Division Two of the Southern League. Tension remained, though, with eccentric Wales international goalkeeper Leigh Richmond Roose requiring police intervention to prevent him from being thrown into the River Trent by Stoke supporters after he guested for Vale wearing his old Stoke shirt in a District League decider between Port Vale and Stoke Reserves. The two clubs harboured ambitions of returning to the Football League, however, and made a pact that meant Vale would not bid for membership, leaving Stoke more likely to succeed in their bid; Stoke would then support Vale in any future bids they made.What If There Had Been No Port in the Vale?: Startling Port Vale Stories! (Witan Books, 2011, ) Stoke were voted back into the Football League in 1915, though World War I delayed their re-entry until 1919, at which stage Vale also won re-election at the expense of the expelled Leeds City.
Sharing a city (1920 to 1957)
The first Football League Potteries derby match took place at the Old Recreation Ground on 6 March 1920, when 22,697 spectators witnessed a 3–0 Stoke victory. The Vale did manage a credible 0–0 draw at the Victoria Ground seven days later. The 1920–21 season saw Vale claim a league double over Stoke, though the Potters did claim the North Staffordshire Infirmary Cup, in what were annual Stoke vs Vale games of the period played to raise funds for the North Staffordshire Royal Infirmary. Stoke achieved promotion the following season, and though they were relegated after one season in the First Division, managed to record a league double over Vale in 1923–24. Vale recorded another league double in the 1924–25 campaign. Stoke-on-Trent gained city status in June 1925, and Stoke changed their name to Stoke City two months later. The 1925–26 season would prove disastrous for the club, however, as Vale recorded another league double as Stoke were relegated to the Third Division North. Despite now being the top club in the area for the first time, the Port Vale board of directors agreed in principle to amalgamate with Stoke City in April 1926. City rejected the offer, and went on to return to the Second Division as Third Division North champions in 1927.
Stoke achieved a league double over Vale in 1928–29, winning both games by two goals to one. Vale then emulated their rivals by being relegated in 1929, returning to the Second Division a year later as champions of the Third Division North. They went on to achieve a club record finish of fifth in 1930–31, despite only taking one point from the two Potteries derby league games. The 1931–32 season saw some big scorelines in derby games, as Vale won 3–0 at home and Stoke won 4–0 at home in the league, whilst Stoke took the North Staffordshire Infirmary Cup by winning 7–0. City went on to achieve a league double over their rivals on their way to the Second Division title at the end of the 1932–33 season, with their 3–1 victory at the Old Recreation Ground on 4 March 1933 proving to be the last Football League fixture between the clubs for another 21 years.
Stoke established themselves in the First Division, finishing fourth in 1935–36. In contrast, Vale went on to end the decade in the Third Division South. Though Stoke operated throughout the whole of World War II, Vale went into abeyance for four years from 1940. The two teams met after Vale's senior team reformed, with Stoke recording some heavy victories over them in what remained of the wartime leagues. The Old Recreation Ground was sold to the local council, and Vale Park opened in 1950, though the chance for a competitive derby game at the new ground came too soon. The two teams were drawn in the FA Cup and came to a 2–2 stalemate at the Victoria Ground – witnessed by a derby record attendance of 49,500 – on 6 January 1951, though major drainage problems at Vale Park meant the replay was also staged at the Victoria Ground and the Potters won 1–0.
Vale won promotion as Third Division North champions in 1954 to set up a resumption of the derby games in the Second Division. League derby games resumed with a 0–0 draw in front of a crowd of 46,777 at the Victoria Ground on 4 September 1954. Vale Park finally held a derby game on 25 April 1955, with Stoke the victors by one goal to nil; the crowd of 41,674 set a never-to-be-broken attendance record at Vale Park. On 10 October 1956, the Victoria Ground saw its first game under floodlights as Stoke recorded a 3–1 win over their local rivals. The two teams played out a 2–2 draw at Vale Park on 29 April 1957, which would prove to be the last competitive match between the two clubs in a national competition for 32 years.
A dormant rivalry (1958 to 1988) Port Vale were relegated to the Third Division in 1957, leaving the two clubs to face each other only in friendly games and the short-lived Supporters' Clubs' Trophy competition which pitted Stoke and Vale against each other in two-legged finals in 1960 and 1961. Tony Waddington re-signed Stanley Matthews in 1961 and led the Potters to the Second Division title two years later. Port Vale would fall into the Fourth Division in 1965, leaving a gap of three divisions between the two rivals. Stanley Matthews joined Port Vale as general manager, but his spell in Burslem went disastrously wrong, with the club forced to apply for re-election to the Football League in 1968 as punishment for making illegal payments to players – Stoke City were one of 39 clubs that voted to admit the Vale, opposing just nine who voted to remove them from the competition. City, meanwhile, won a major tournament for the first time in 1972 by winning the League Cup. Vale allowed Stoke to play a home game against Middlesbrough at Vale Park on 17 January 1976 when a freak gale caused severe damage to the Victoria Ground; a crowd of 21,009 saw a top-flight league fixture at the stadium for the first time. Stoke were relegated from the top flight in 1985, whilst John Rudge further closed the gap when he took the Valiants back into the third tier the following year. Another promotion followed in 1989 to reunite Stoke and Vale in the second tier of English football. In the many years spent apart, which coincided with the rise of football hooliganism in the United Kingdom, relations between the clubs were cordial, and many local football fans attended home fixtures at both clubs without issue.
Heated rivals (1989 to 2002)