Following his retirement as a player, Rudge was made a
coach at former club Torquay United by
Mike Green – a former teammate at both Carlisle and Bristol Rovers. In taking the position he rejected
player-manager offers at
non-League clubs
Weymouth and
Atherstone. He enjoyed the role but began to look for opportunities elsewhere after being moved away from the first-team and placed in charge of the School of Excellence. He interviewed at
Kettering Town and
Crewe Alexandra, though was rejected by Kettering. He felt that Crewe did not have much potential. Vale had long been a struggling lower league club, though McGrath had grand ambitions and wanted to bring in someone with coaching experience who possessed a deep knowledge of the Third and Fourth Divisions. He quickly became a "cushioning buffer" between the players and McGrath, who was "quite dictatorial with a cutting tongue". He would back McGrath in front of the squad whilst addressing the player's concerns to him in private. McGrath could also be an inspirational leader, giving Rudge insights into that aspect of man-management, as well as public relations and headline-grabbing stunts. Rudge was promoted to the position of assistant manager in December 1980. Rudge and
Jimmy Greenhoff took temporary charge of the team for fix games just after Christmas 1982 whilst McGrath was ill with a virus; the team won five of the six games, sustaining Vale's promotion push. Greenhoff was appointed as
Rochdale manager in March 1983 and offered Rudge a role at
Spotland, which he declined.
Manager of Port Vale Appointment and becoming established (1983–85) Following the sacking of McGrath in December 1983, Rudge was made
caretaker manager at Port Vale. However, player
Tommy Gore noted "the players are in a more determined mood." He was unable to prevent relegation at the end of the
1983–84 season, though the club did avoid finishing in last place. Though
Mark Bright and
Robbie Earle were signed to Vale before Rudge's appointment, he helped to bed them into the first team, making use of the many hours he had previously spent providing them with extra training sessions as a coach. Bright, though, refused to sign a new contract with the club and joined
Leicester City for a tribunal set figure of £66,666. The
1984–85 campaign aimed to arrest the decline and consolidate in mid-table. Rudge achieved this aim, slashing the wage bill to offset the club's reduced income, guiding the Vale to a 12th-place finish. He had sold big striker
Jim Steel for £10,000 in January 1984 and received a £17,500 fee for Eamonn O'Keefe in March 1985, which gave him money to invest in the playing squad. His first transfer signing was
Oshor Williams for £7,000 from
Stockport County, who would become a key player after recovering from a cracked kneecap sustained early at the club. Two stand-out free transfer signings were full-back
Alan Webb and attacker
Alistair Brown; Webb went on to win the
Port Vale Player of the Year award in 1985, whilst the veteran Brown proved to be an excellent midfield partner to young Earle. Williams was sold on for a £18,000 profit within 18 months, whilst Jones would score 53 goals in his first two seasons at Vale Park. An 18-game unbeaten run from January to April helped to secure Vale the fourth promotion place at the end of the
1985–86 season, leaving them seven points clear of fifth-place
Leyton Orient. In addition to 18 goals from Jones, the team had a solid defence, and their tally of 19 clean sheets was beaten by only one other club in the entire Football League. At the end of the season, Rudge turned down the opportunity to become manager of
Preston North End. Smith was purchased for £10,000 from Sheffield United and was sold for four times that figure to
Lincoln City just over a year later. The club finished mid-table, twelve points above the relegation zone, whilst Jones scored 37 goals. The winter signing of veteran
Bob Hazell helped to shore up Vale's defence as he formed an excellent partnership with
Phil Sproson. At the end of the season,
Bill Bell was made the club's chairman, who would have a tempestuous but ultimately successful relationship with Rudge – though Rudge usually had to work hard to persuade Bell to agree to invest in a new signing or even to provide free matchday tickets to club staff, whilst Bell would change the coaching staff on his own volition. Also,
Darren Beckford was signed from Manchester City for £15,000, with half of the funds coming from bucket collections from supporters. He would become the club's top scorer for the next four seasons. Rudge also gave a first-team debut to youth academy product
Andy Porter, who would make over 400 appearances over the next 12 years; Rudge was so enamoured with Porter that he said "he was the only professional footballer I would have allowed a daughter of mine to marry". The cash-flow problem was eased by the sale of Andy Jones to
Charlton Athletic for £350,000. On 20 January 1988, the club achieved a 2–1 victory over top-flight
Tottenham Hotspur in the FA Cup which Rudge said "put us on the footballing map". Before the cup run there were rumours that the directors were considering sacking Rudge due to a poor run of results in the league. The cup run and the sale of Jones helped to put the club in the black financially for the first time in a long time, with the £175,000 prize money helping to sustain an overall profit of £410,000. The
1988–89 season was highly successful. Rudge signed a new two-year contract after Port Vale beat Bristol Rovers in
the play-off final following a third-place finish in the league and victory over former boss John MGrath's Preston North End in the semi-finals. For the first time in
thirty-two years, Vale were in the Second Division. A new
club record was set in January 1989, as Rudge purchased defender
Dean Glover from
Middlesbrough for £200,000; the signing was a necessary short-term one to maintain the promotion push as both Hazell and Sproson was injured, though Glover would remain with the club for the next ten years. The next month he added
Liverpool winger
John Jeffers to the squad for £35,000, using the money he received from selling
Steve Harper to Preston North End. Now on a par with
Potteries derby rivals Stoke City, both league games ended as draws, though Stoke were relegated in last place to leave Vale in a higher division than their rivals for the first time since
1955–56. He made a few changes in preparation for the
1990–91 campaign, with
Kevin Kent as the only major incoming transfer. Vale once again finished comfortably in mid-table. Non-scoring striker
Ronnie Jepson was sold to Preston North End for £80,000, which was reinvested in bringing Dutch midfielder
Robin van der Laan to the club; over the next five years the Dutchman become a key player. In June 1992, Rudge again broke the club's
transfer record, picking up striker
Martin Foyle for £375,000 from
Oxford United; Foyle went on to score 108 goals in 296 games for the club. Rudge also brought in
Keith Houchen from
Hibernian for £100,000 and spent £300,000 on the versatile centre-half
Peter Swan.
Vale as a second-tier mainstay (1991–99) In
1991–92, the club finished in last place, five points shy of safety. Vale were still a Second Division club due to the creation of the
Premier League, though they were now in the third tier. Vale had gone 18 games without a win in the campaign's second half after Ray Walker was sidelined for five months with ligament damage,
Nico Jalink proving to be an inadequate replacement. Another key arrival for the
1992–93 campaign was goalkeeper
Paul Musselwhite, signed for a £17,500 fee from
Scunthorpe United to take the place of the ageing Mark Grew, with Musselwhite going on to feature in over 360 games over the next eight years. Taylor would finish as top scorer on 19 goals, helping the team to 89 points and a third-place finish. Vale also played their Potteries derby rivals five times, beating
Lou Macari's Stoke in the Football League Trophy clash and the FA Cup tie after a
replay, but losing both encounters in the league. This was achieved without star midfielder Ray Walker, who was forced to sit out the entire campaign with a cruciate ligament injury. The hangover of the play-off final had continued up until mid-September, at which point they won eight games out of ten to climb to the top of the table. Six wins from eight league games also won Rudge the
Second Division Manager of the Month award for April. At the end of the season, Ian Taylor was sold to
Sheffield Wednesday, becoming the club's first million-pound sale. Rudge was though very unhappy with Bell for refusing to pay him a promotion bonus that had been verbally agreed, and strongly considered accepting Bradford City chairman
Geoffrey Richmond's offer to manage his club with a 25% salary increase until a gathering of hundreds of Vale fans outside the stadium convinced him to stay put. The club consolidated their
First Division status in
1994–95, finishing ten points above the relegation zone. The money from Taylor's sale was reinvested into the playing squad, with £225,000 going to Newcastle United for
Steve Guppy, and a £150,000 fee was paid to bring striker
Tony Naylor in from nearby Crewe Alexandra. Both men would prove to be good buys, Naylor being a three-time top scorer. At the end of the season, Van der Laan was sold to
Derby County for £475,000 plus
Lee Mills (Mills would go on to win the club's Player of the Year award in 1998). In
1995–96, Vale finished 12th in the First Division and beat Stoke City 1–0 in both league encounters thanks to goals from Bogie. The club achieved another giant slaying by beating
Everton 2–1 in an FA Cup fourth-round replay. Rudge also led Vale to
the final of the
Anglo-Italian Cup, where they lost 5–2 to
Genoa,
Gennaro Ruotolo scoring a hat-trick. In
1996–97, the club finished in eighth place, their best league finish since
1934. In February, he sold Guppy to
Martin O'Neill's Leicester City for £950,000.
Gareth Ainsworth was purchased for a club record £500,000 from Lincoln City at the start of the
1997–98 season. Stoke City chairman Peter Coates again offered the vacant manager's position to Rudge, who accepted and signed a contract, only to change his mind and stay at Vale Park. At the start of the
1998–99 season, Ainsworth was sold to
Wimbledon for £2 million, breaking another club transfer record. Ainsworth's sale was authorised by the club's board without Rudge's knowledge or blessing as he was out of the country scouting in Sweden. Mills was also sold to
Bradford City for £1 million, with the player unable to leave for free as he had signed a contract extension with the Vale only hours before the
bosman ruling came into law. As well as an increased number of big money sales, key players such as Naylor, Foyle, Aspin, Glover and Walker were coming towards the end of their careers, with the latter having already departed for the local non-League scene. Bell and Rudge frequently clashed over the club's spending priorities, with the chairman wanting to improve further the stadium and the manager demanding funds to improve the playing squad. In the summer of 1998, Rudge was permitted to spend £300,000 on forward
Peter Beadle and £100,000 on defender
Michael Walsh, whilst having to make do with free transfers to make up the rest of his squad. Bell sacked Rudge on 18 January 1999, two days after a 1–0 home defeat to Swindon Town that left the Vale 23rd in the table. Rudge had to take the club to an employment tribunal as Bell refused to pay the amount stipulated in his contract. Following the dismissal, Sir
Alex Ferguson said: "Every Port Vale supporter should get down on their knees and thank The Lord for John Rudge." Another star of the late Rudge era was
Anthony Gardner. Gardner was retained by Vale and was sold to Spurs for £855,000 in January 2000.
Director of football at Stoke City {{Quote box Rudge was appointed as
director of football at
Stoke City in 1999, working alongside manager
Gary Megson, after turning down the same role at Port Vale. One of his early signing successes was goalkeeper
Ben Foster, who had been scouted by
Colin Dobson; Foster was bought from
Racing Club Warwick for £15,000 and sold to Manchester United for £1 million four years later. Rudge retained his position after the club were taken over by
Gunnar Gíslason's Icelandic consortium because newly appointed manager
Guðjón Þórðarson wanted him and coach
Nigel Pearson to provide knowledge of the English leagues. Another Rudge signing was future
Scotland international striker
Chris Iwelumo, as well as the majority of the British signings of the Icelandic era, such as fellow Scotsman
Peter Handyside; he also dabbled in the Dutch market, signing
Netherlands international
Peter Hoekstra, whilst
Belarus international
Syarhey Shtanyuk arrived from Belgium. Rudge was offered the post of manager at former club Bristol Rovers in February 2001, but declined. Stoke won the
2000 Football League Trophy final and
2002 Second Division play-off final. Guðjón was sacked despite promotion, and his replacement in
Steve Cotterill quit after four months. The board gave Rudge the task of convincing
George Burley to take charge, a task in which he failed after Burley changed his mind the day before his scheduled unveiling. Rudge suggested
Tony Pulis, and Pulis was given the job instead, who in turn told Rudge which players to sign rather than allow Rudge to take the recruitment lead. However, problems occurred at the boardroom level, leading to one embarrassing moment where
Ade Akinbiyi refused to leave Rudge's office all day in protest that a promised contract was not forthcoming; Gíslason refused to sanction Akinbiyi's new contract and the player was eventually sold on to
Burnley. Gíslason sacked Pulis for not recruiting a sufficient amount of Icelandic players and hired Dutchman
Johan Boskamp to take charge. On 2 November 2005, he had a public fall-out with Boskamp at
Highfield Road. Rudge went down to the dug-out during a 2–1 win over
Coventry City to give some advice to Boskamp. The Dutchman took offence to this and said to the board, 'Either he goes, or I go', believing that Rudge had overstepped the mark. Rudge maintained, though, that Boskamp used the incident as a ploy in an attempt to be paid off by Stoke as the Dutchman could not handle the pressure of the English game, revealing that he had talked Boskamp out of quitting during the pre-season. Rudge and his assistant
Jan de Koning were twice suspended by Stoke, after disagreements with Boskamp. Rudge was reinstated in his role following Boskamp's departure and the return of former chairman Peter Coates and former manager Tony Pulis. Stoke City's promotion out of the
Championship in
2007–08 meant that he would be at a top-flight club for the first time after 49 years in the game. As the club's administrative, coaching and management staff grew in number during the club's time in the Premier League, Rudge's influence on the first-team lessened. He focussed more of his time on recruiting players identified by the manager – often travelling all across the globe. Stoke reached the
2011 FA Cup final and competed in the
UEFA Europa League. However, Rudge found himself having to act as a buffer between manager Tony Pulis and chief executive Tony Scholes. Rudge left Stoke City at the end of the
2012–13 season in a 'major shake-up' of the club's
scouting network, ending 14 years at the club at the age of 68; Pulis and many of his backroom team also left the club at this time. After leaving Stoke, Rudge then spent the next four years scouting for
Hull City.
Return to Port Vale On 4 October 2017, he returned to Port Vale in an advisory role to assist his former defender Neil Aspin, who had just been appointed manager. He was appointed as club president on 10 August 2019. He was inducted into the Stoke-on-Trent Sporting Hall of Fame. A statue of Rudge was unveiled at Vale Park for his 80th birthday in October 2024. His was one of four faces painted onto a community mural at Vale Park in December 2025, alongside
Roy Sproson,
Robbie Earle and
Tom Pope. ==Managerial style==