Port Vale disheartened to be involved in ultimately brutal Irish game (9)
I believe the answer is:
liverpool
'port' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'vale disheartened to be involved in ultimately brutal irish game' is the wordplay.
'disheartened' means to remove the middle letters.
'to be involved in' indicates putting letters inside.
'ultimately' indicates one should take the final letters.
'irish' becomes 'Ir' (abbreviation).
'game' becomes 'pool' (pool is a kind of game).
'vale' with its centre taken out is 've'.
The final letter of 'brutal' is 'l'.
'l'+'ir'='lir'
've' put inside 'lir' is 'liver'.
'liver'+'pool'='LIVERPOOL'
(Other definitions for liverpool that I've seen before include "Merseyside city of The Beatles" , "Merseyside port" , "A Scouse is a native of this English city" , "Cathedral city" , "Where Beatles started" .)