A few hours after City’s Under 21s had suffered their second straight conclusive defeat, by 3-1 at Bristol City, after the mid season break, thereby making it clear how much they’re missing the players who have been loaned out this month, Stevenage and Bolton, two of League One’s top eight, played out a 0-0 draw which didn’t really do either side much good.
However, Bolton remain one of two teams I keep on hearing from the pundits which can make it into the automatic promotion places by the end of the season despite their campaign so far making it look like that’s a tall order. The other one of those two sides are Stockport County who come to Cardiff City Stadium in fourth place, but unable to shake off a feeling that this season has seen them not playing to their potential – or maybe more accurately, not hitting the heights most of those pundits were predicting for them back in August.
I’m pretty sure I’ve only seen Stockport play three times this season – I watched much of their early season 4-2 defeat at Plymouth and their 3-0 loss at Peterborough in November I think it was and I must be honest and say I wasn’t too impressed by either of them. By far the best performance of the three was the game at what I’ll always call Edgeley Park in mid September in which City escaped with a 1-1 draw thanks to a late, late Yousef Salech goal after they had been second best throughout.
However, even then, when Stockport were in control for so many of the ninety minutes, they had to rely in a penalty for their lead as, by and large, they proved that the quality of finishing at this level is some way short of the standards City fans had got used to after twenty plus years spent in the top two divisions.
In saying that, three wins and a draw in their last five matches suggest Stockport have come out the other end of their mid season slump and our win at Bradford on the weekend took us a point clear of them at the top of the League One away results table, but we have played a game more.
So, Stockport are showing automatic promotion form away from home. While the Bradford win felt like a very important staging post in our season, Stockport’s record on their travels suggests that they’ll be more than able to take advantage if some of the complacency I’ve seen from some City fans following our last game is repeated by the team on Saturday.
Stockport are another team that we’ve not played much in the past sixty odd years (indeed, they slumped as low as the National League North after the previous meeting between the teams in 2003 before this season’s draw), but I don’t think they’re in the Stevenage and Burton class, so here’s the usual seven questions on our next opponents with the answers to be posted on here on Sunday.
60s. This Yorkshireman, with a name which would make him unusual in even these more cosmopolitan times, would have spent more than half of his career being called an inside forward. His period with his first club began at the age of fourteen when he also became an apprentice joiner. That first club represented the place where he was born and my guess is that they would have been considered Yorkshire’s leading club when he joined them. Although he played most games for his first club, he’s probably best remembered for his six years with his second club on the other side of the Pennines. He stayed in Lancashire as he entered his thirties to sign for another club which, like Stockport, has dropped into non league football for a while in this century and two years later, the fag end of his professional career was spent with a season at Stockport in which he only played thirteen games. On the international front, he was the last surviving member of an England World Cup Finals squad, but who is he?
70s. Which World Cup winner played a game for Stockport during this decade?
80s. Blood Donor up front?
90s. The epitome of a “no nonsense” defender, he began his career with his hometown club and did so well that he was signed by a First Division club for a six figure fee as a teenager. He played for thirteen clubs all told in league and non league football and his second club. was the only one which I would consider to be in the south of England – he ended up leaving them without playing a single game. He headed back north for an even bigger fee to wear white, but, ironically, a financial crisis forced him to be offloaded to Stockport for a nominal fee. His form for Stockport was so good that a bid of just short of a million pounds was received for him, but he stayed at Stockport long enough to be given a belated testimonial in 2014. A change of manager saw him fall our of favour as he was loaned out to striped ceramic workers before he signed permanently for Yorkshire reds and then there was a return to his native county to play in very distinctive colours. After that, he dropped into non league playing for, among others, Accrington Stan!ey, Stalybridge Celtic and Salford City. Can you name him?
00s. Dog gone it! What caused Russian leader to err? (6,5)
10s. He played for Stockport in the national League North during this decade and has also played for them this season, who am I describing?
20s. Revolutionary meets caretaker perhaps?
Answers:
60s. One of only a few footballers to have a surname beginning with the letter Q, Albert Quixall began his career with Sheffield Wednesday and was a first team regular through most of the seven years following his debut in 1951. Quixall signed for Manchester United in 1958 and played over one hundred and sixty league games for them before signing for Oldham in 1964 and then Stockport two years later. Quixall won five capes for England and was the last surviving member of their 1954 World Cup squad before his death in 2020.
70s. Sir Bobby Charlton “guested” for Stockport County in 1975 in a friendly game with Manchester City.
80s. Before his tragic, self inflicted, death at just forty four, Tony Hancock was, for a while, perhaps the UK’s foremost comedian. He had a show on the BBC which I can just about remember watching as a kid called Hancock’s Half Hour and it’s most famous episode was entitled The Blood Donor. A Stockport striker of the late eighties who went on to play for Burnley and Preston was also called Tony Hancock.
90s. Mike Flynn started off with Oldham Athletic, then signed for Norwich for £100,000 as a nineteen year old, but the move was not a success and Preston paid £25,000 to sign him a year later. However, Preston were forced to sell him to Stockport in 1993 and he clocked up nearly four hundred league appearances for them before the appointment of Carlton Palmer in 2002 saw him fall out of favour as he was loaned to Stoke and eventually left for Barnsley on a free transfer. Blackpool were Flynn’s last Football League club as he spent the 03/04 season with them before dropping into non league football.
00s. Gordon Greer.
10s. Goalkeeper Ben Hinchcliffe has been at Stockport for ten years and recently played his four hundredth league game for them – he was in their team for the 3-2 win over Rotherham last Saturday.
20s. Che Gardner.
