The 1924–25 season was Port Vale's sixth consecutive season of football (19th overall) in the Football League. A highly successful season, for the first time in their history they finished above rivals Stoke. Vale's eighth-place finish in the second tier was their best finish since 1893–94. Throughout the 20th century, this finish would be bettered only in 1930–31 (they would finish third in the Second Division in 1992–93, however by then the Second Division was actually the third tier in the Football League behind the Premier League).

Their success was down primarily to the goalscoring efforts of young Wilf Kirkham, who netted 33 goals in 44 games. This was combined with a settled team, which saw just fifteen regular players supplemented by seven reserve players.

The pre-season saw the arrival of three new players: veteran Everton goalkeeper Tom Fern, young half-back Sidney Blunt, and winger Billy Tempest made the leap from Stoke to Vale.

The season started with a lose-one-win-one sequence of six games; significantly, the final game of this sequence was a 1–0 win over Stoke at the Victoria Ground, Bob Connelly scoring the goal. The "Valiants" followed this with five games without a win, and "a certain section of the crowd" became "prone to gibe and jeer at mistakes", which had a noticeable effect on the side's confidence. Goals were a problem, and so the directors took the decision to sell full-back Len Birks to Sheffield United for 'a substantial sum', promising to spend the money on forwards. They duly signed Alfred Strange from Portsmouth.

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