Roy Sproson

Writing a potted history of this man was never going to be an easy task. How do you sum up a legend in a few paragraphs?

Simply quoting statistics is never likely to adequately explain his remarkable longevity in the game, his love of football, the loyalty for his football club, and the remarkable effect he had on his colleagues.

However, I'll give it a go.

In The Beginning

Roy Sproson was born on September 23rd 1930 above a greengrocer's shop at 3 Slater Street, Burslem.Legend has it that on the night of his birth, his father had been to see a bout featuring local featherweight boxer Roy Berrisford. A few hours after returning home, his wife presented him with a baby son who was instantly named Roy after the victorious Mr Berrisford.

Football was in the Sproson family blood - his father had been a professional for Stoke City during the First World War, brother Jess was a professional with Port Vale, and Roy's other brother, Clifford, had turned out as an amateur for the Vale in the Cheshire League.

The Sproson Family had moved to Trent Vale, where Roy played his junior football with the local Trent Vale Lifeboys team before moving up to the Trent Vale club with whom he won the Sentinel Shield, beating Port Vale 5-0 in the final!

From Junior football Roy then spent 12 months as an amateur with Stoke City, and made such rapid progress that the likes of Aston Villa, West Ham and Bolton Wanderers all took a keen interest in this young player from the potteries. Roy's father was keen for him to sign for Stoke, and although the manager Bob McGrory was keen, the best that Roy was offered was a promise of a contract after his National Service.

Older brother Jess, already a Vale professional stepped in and took Roy along to meet Valiant's manager Gordon Hodgson, who promised that he would do his best to further his career and not stand in his way if he had a chance to make progress. Roy was so impressed that he signed on the spot, for the sum of £3 per week while he served his National Service.

After his demob from the RAF, Roy signed as a professional for Port Vale in July 1949, making his league debut at left-half in a 1-1 Third Division (South) game at Gillingham on November 11th 1950, aged 20. The man Roy replaced in the side that day was Bill McGarry, who Roy later voted into his all-time best Vale 11. Roy went on to make 10 appearances that season, before developing over the next couple of years into an integral part of what was to become known throughout football as the 'iron curtain'.

Glory Days

Upon hanging up his boots as player-manager, Freddie Steele concentrated on building a team and system of play that was hard to beat, reasoning that as a prolific striker he knew better than most what it took to stop strikers from scoring. After finishing second in the season 1952-3 with the lowest goals against total in their section, it was obvious that Vale were becoming formidable opponents. Their reputation was to become legend the following season as they cruised to the divisional championship by 11 points and reached the Semi-Final of the FA Cup, losing in contentious circumstances to West Bromwich Albion, via a penalty winner scored by former Vale favourite Ronnie Allen. As Roy recalled in an 'Evening Sentinel' article in 1975, "At the time, we did not know what it was like to lose and the thought never occurred to us. We were convinced, in fact, that we could not be beaten". Ever the professional, Roy put the disappointment behind him to go on and finish the job of gaining promotion, the 'iron curtain' conceding only 21 goals and suffering only 3 league defeats in the process.

Neither Roy or the Vale ever came close to scaling the heights of the season 1953-4 again, but Roy was involved in two more promotion campaigns, the first in 1958-9 as Vale became the first winners of the new Fourth Division, and again in season 1969-70 as Vale finished fourth in the Fourth division. Roy was ever present during that last promotion, as he was in seasons 1961-2 and 1963-4. Besides this, he was also a member of the Vale side which won the Football Supporters' Clubs' Trophy in 1961, and was voted as Gillette 'Sportsman of the Year' in 1970.

The Beginning of the End

After continually being talked out of retirement by then Manager Gordon Lee, Roy finally hung up his boots on May 8th 1972, after playing his 755th league game, a 2-1 home defeat by Rotherham United. In all, Roy made an outstanding number of 837 appearances for the Vale and had the distinction of never being sent off and being booked only twice during his career.

Roy continued to serve the club as coach until January 1974, when he was appointed Caretaker-manager after the departure of Gordon Lee to Blackburn Rovers. The position of manager was made permanent in April 1974. Roy's sacking, after a poor start to the 1977-8 season heralded a decline in the Club's fortune which was to see them wallow in the Fourth Division for the next five years. Roy's sacking was an inglorious way to end a career which had been so devoted to a single cause, and perhaps the saddest statistic is that he never set foot inside Vale Park again.

Perhaps better to leave this retrospective look at Roy's career with a quote that perhaps sheds light on the reason behind his long career: "I have always loved the game and I have always loved the club. The satisfaction of playing the game I love for the club I love has always been enough for me".

Roy Sproson 1930-1997

Career

Appearances: Football League 755 (5); F.A. Cup 65; League Cup 11; Supporters' Clubs' Trophy 5; Coronation Cup 1; Total 837 (5)

Goals: Football League 30; F.A. Cup 5; Total 35