Port Vale create piece of under the radar English league history

Port Vale kept up their League Two promotion chase on Saturday with an impressive 2-0 win at home to Sutton United.

The game was most notable for a spectacular karate-kick style goal from Vale's Jamie Proctor. That won plenty of acclaim on social media for a likeness to Paolo Di Canio's iconic goal for West Ham against Wimbledon back in 2000.

Spookily, Proctor's strike came exactly 22 years to the day since Di Canio's dazzling effort. However, the win for Vale also saw them set a remarkable record. The victory means they are now the only club out of all 92 in the top tiers to have recorded league wins over all the other 91 teams.

Sutton, of course, were promoted last season and the Valiants completed the full set thanks to goals from James Wilson and Proctor. That was enough to not only set the unique record but also gain revenge after they lost 4-3 at Gander Green Lane in stoppage time in October's meeting.

The statistic of Vale's achievement was unearthed on social media by their club historian Phil Sherwin. And it certainly got fans of other sides thinking who is next in line.

One wrote: "What a stat that is! Wonder how many Wolves are short. Probably only about 5?" Another wrote: "That's some quiz question answer right there. Wow." Another put: "This is actually extremely impressive if you give it some thought."

Vale's latest win was a fourth success in five league outings and it saw them leap from ninth up to fourth in the table. They are right in the mix for a play-off spot in a tightly-bunched race which sees just seven points separate second from tenth.

Assistant manager Andy Crosby, who is standing in for boss Darrell Clarke who remains on bereavement leave, said of the performance: "It was an electric start. We said we had to start fast, which we have been doing here. We got on the front foot and scored two early goals. The game became a little bit scrappy then for the rest of the first half and they had a spell. But we knew what we had to do today against them. Out of possession, we had to do all the basics to a really high level.

"We had to be ultra-competitive without being silly and giving free kicks away. We had to win duels, run after people, get blocks in and stop balls from coming in the box. We did a manful job of that and, when we got the ball, we had to play our game, which was something we spoke about before the game. We had to impose ourselves on them, otherwise they would dominate the game and how they wanted to play the game

"So I'm delighted with a good clean sheet and the lads will now get a couple of days off to recover and reflect on where we are at. And we will attack the rest of the games coming up."