After a number of early half chances for Swindon in the first half, which Swindon generally dominated Port Vale came closest to scoring five minutes before half time when Rhys Evans made a one-on-one save against Port Vale's Marc Goodfellow's shot.
Rory Fallon, and Matt Hewlett had also come close to scoring for Swindon, but neither could get their shot on target.
In the second half Port Vale came out looking to the better side, with Rhys Evans once again forced to make a good save to give the score level at 0-0.
Jerel Ifil made a good run for Swindon, but failed to score his first ever goal. His attack led to a Swindon throw-in, which was cleared away.
On 70 minutes Andy King made a substitution which didn't go down too well with the 500 or so travelling fans from Swindon. He took off Sammy Igoe, and replaced him with Matt Heywood.
On 76 minutes Port Vale scored the only goal of the game when poor defending left Burchill to score into an empty net, after Evans has seconds early blocked another shot, which wasn't cleared away in time.
Swindon pressed forward with Jamie McMaster also coming close for Swindon, but Swindon rarely looked like scoring without the suspended Sam Parkin.
Overall a fairly poor game, in which I can't remember a single on target shot from Swindon. Port Vale were not a good save, and Swindon had plenty of the play, but just never looked like they would score.
On Saturday Swindon return to Rory Fallon's old club Barnsley in the hope of returning to winning ways.