Profiles

It has taken nearly a decade of fundraising, planning and sculpting, but now, people behind plans to erect a 16 feet high memorial statue to Port Vale legend Roy Sproson are seeing some light at the end of the tunnel.

The project started back in 2001, and more than £42,000 has been raised by Vale supporters, club sponsors, ex players as well as the PFA to pay for it.

About the statue

The statue designed and built by sculptor Mike Talbot re-enacts the Vale Park legend, jumping to head the ball. Money is still being raised by the Sproson fund to create the plinth on which the statue will stand and some landscaping.

The statue cast in bronze

The plinth will be made of granite, while stainless steel plates are to be used for the names and dedications that will run across it.

At present the statue is in storage, while the fund members seek permission from Port Vale and Stoke-on-Trent City Council to get it put up outside Vale Park, hopefully before Christmas.

Fans have already been treated to an unveiling of the statue's head and feet, whilst recently signposts at Sproson Park in Burslem have finally being replaced years after being vandalised.

Career

Roy Sproson was an integral part of Vale’s most successful ever era and part of a back-line that was to be known throughout football as the ‘Iron Curtain’,  with Vale conceding only 21 times in 46 games in the 1953-54 season.

Managed by the former England International striker Freddie Steele, Vale were a formidable outfit, and the same season also reached the Semi-Final of the FA Cup.

Unfortunately they lost at the hands of eventual winners West Bromwich Albion, 2-1 in front of 68,221 spectators at Villa Park.

England

Sproson himself was told by the England manager at the time Walter Winterbottom that was he to leave Vale Park, the left sided defender would have received an England cap that his talent undoubtedly merited.

Artist Mike Talbot and the clay model

However Sproson’s dedication towards the club was unyielding, and did not have it in his heart to leave the club whom he had shared so many happy memories with.

Neither Sproson nor Vale ever managed to recreate such heights as the 1953-54 season had brought, but Roy was involved in two more successful promotion campaigns at Vale Park, eventually retiring on May 8th 1972.

Record breaker

In 755 league appearances for the club, scoring 30 league goals, Roy also achieved the honour of never being sent-off - remarkable for a defender.

After taking over as full time manager of the club in April 1974, Sproson was sacked at the start of the 1977-78 campaign after a poor start.

He died in January 1997, aged 66, but his legend lives on - and will always be remembered when his statue is finally on view.