1899–1900 Burslem Port Vale F.C. season
season of football team
The 1899–1900 season was Burslem Port Vale's second consecutive season (sixth overall) of football in the English Football League. Under the stewardship of chairman Robert Audley and manager Sam Gleaves, Vale finished 11th in the league with 34 points, registering a decent defensive record but struggling for goals—the second‑lowest tally in the division. In the FA Cup, Vale reached the Fifth Qualifying Round before being eliminated by Stalybridge Rovers. They were also runners-up in both the Staffordshire Senior Cup and Birmingham Senior Cup, losing finals to West Bromwich Albion and Wolverhampton Wanderers respectively. The team's league top scorer was Howard Harvey, with 10 goals in the Second Division (17 in all competitions). Attendances were low: the highest home gates reached about 3,000 for matches against Newton Heath (7 April 1900) and Grimsby Town (9 September 1899), while the lowest dipped to just 300 spectators for the home win over Lincoln City on 21 April 1900. The average league attendance was approximately 1,518.
Overview
Second Division
During the pre-season, the Athletic Ground had its capacity increased to 25,000. Four new forwards were signed, namely Scots Billy Grassam (Maryhill) and James Reid (Hibernian), and local lads Charles Walters (Gainsborough Trinity) and Billy Leech (Tottenham Hotspur).
The season started with three defeats in four games, including a 3–2 loss to Grimsby Town in a home tie that the hosts had looked comfortably ahead with 20 minutes to play.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “1899–1900 Burslem Port Vale F.C. season” is season of football team. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Burslem, Port and Vale, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “season of football team” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 19, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4557462. The first chronological checks are 1899 and 1900.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “1899–1900 Burslem Port Vale F.C. season”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow 1899–1900 Burslem Port Vale F.C. season primary sources, 1899–1900 Burslem Port Vale F.C. season archive and Burslem research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “1899–1900 Burslem Port Vale F.C. season”?
- What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
- Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “1899–1900 Burslem Port Vale F.C. season” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.