Stockport County

The 2025–26 League Two campaign was supposed to be a comeback story, and for most of the season it played out that way. Stockport County reached the League One play-off final, only to be taken apart by Bolton Wanderers, 4–1, a scoreline that said more about the gap between the two clubs on the day than about the season behind it.

The club began life in 1883 as Heaton Norris Rovers, formed by a group of Sunday school pupils who met at McLaughlin's Cafe. The Stockport County name arrived in 1890, once the town itself had been granted county borough status. The nickname that stuck, The Hatters, has nothing to do with football and everything to do with the hat-making trade that once employed much of the town.

Little of the last two decades has been comfortable. Ownership passed to Sale Sharks owner Brian Kennedy in 2003, then to a supporters' co-operative in 2005 once the money ran short, and by 2009 the club was in administration. A takeover the following year steadied things, but County spent years working back up from non-league football before winning the National League in 2021–22 and returning to the Football League. Promotion followed promotion: the National League North title in 2018–19, then League Two itself in 2023–24, each step part of the same climb back toward where the club had once been.

Edgeley Park has stood as home throughout, now holding 10,852 seated. One stand carries the name of Danny Bergara, the manager still remembered there decades on. The club's Hall of Fame, set up in 2002, keeps that history in view: Andy Thorpe's 489 league appearances, Jack Connor's 132 league goals, Harry Hardy's solitary England call-up in 1924. The old local needle was with Manchester City, though the years outside the League turned Stalybridge Celtic into the more regular rival.

For now, County are back in League One, having missed out on going up automatically, and the play-off final defeat leaves them with the same job again next season: finish the climb the takeover started.