Stockport County were relegated to the Conference at the end of last season after 105 years in the Football League, but now they have new owners and a new manager in the shape of former Premiership and Germany midfielder Dietmar Hamann in his first managerial post.
Stockport County were relegated to the Conference at the end of last season after 105 years in the Football League, but now they have new owners and a new manager in the shape of former Premiership and Germany midfielder Dietmar Hamann in his first managerial post.
The club has been taken over by a Liverpool-based consortium headed by businessman Tony Evans. He thinks that the club has suffered from a lack of leadership and can be restored to where they should be ‘League One pushing on the Championship.’ First, however, they have to get out of the Conference, a task which many former league clubs have not found easy given that there is just one automatic promotion place.
The fundamental challenge that Stockport faces is that the town is in a major conurbation which is home to two leading Premier League clubs, Manchester United and Manchester City. Other clubs in the area such as Bury and Rochdale have found this a challenge and even Bolton Wanderers have been affected by the lure of the Manchester clubs.