Port Vale Beat Scunthorpe 4-2 to Reach FA Cup Second Round

Port Vale are through to the second round of the FA Cup after beating Scunthorpe United 4-2 at Vale Park on Saturday 7 November. It was not a comfortable finish. Scunthorpe pulled two goals back in the closing minutes.

Vale started brightly. Keyrol Figueroa put the home side ahead in the seventh minute, with a pass from Jaheim Headley, and Vale led 1-0 at half-time. The second half belonged to the hosts for a while. Onel Hernandez doubled the lead in the 56th minute, and Max Watters made it 3-0 four minutes later. Headley was involved again, setting up Watters.

Then the game opened up. James Norwood pulled one back for Scunthorpe in the 86th minute, and Declan Howe added a second in the 89th. Vale had one more answer. Oli Lynch scored in the fifth minute of added time to make it 4-2 and settle the tie.

Scunthorpe are a National League side. That is England's fifth tier, several divisions below Port Vale, who play in League One, the third tier. Vale were quarter-finalists in the FA Cup last season. Vale's win also has history behind it. The two clubs have met in this competition before, and Port Vale went through both times, winning 1-0 in 1959-60 and 4-1 in 1984-85.

The FA Cup is open to clubs from across the English pyramid, the ladder of leagues that runs from the Premier League down to local Sunday sides. The first round proper, the stage this tie belonged to, was made up of 40 ties in the draw held in October, all played over the same weekend. Plenty of those games will have had a similar shape: a lower-league side hoping to make a fight of it, and a home team trying to hold onto the lead.

For Port Vale, the result means another home game in the second round. For Scunthorpe, it means a trip home from Stoke-on-Trent with a 4-2 defeat to think about, and two goals to take with them. Late goals have a way of changing how a scoreline feels. Four-two looks like a comfortable win on paper, but the last ten minutes were far from it.