Our champions sealed it in style
THIS is my last ever column writing about Stockport County...as a non-league club.
We did it, we won the league in style and by sixpoints as we totally outplayed both Torquay and Halifax in what was to be a pivotal week in our history.
Not since Nuneaton have we seen such scenes, two near full houses witnessed our return to the football league and we did it in style.
On Wednesday, Torquay came to EP and were totally outplayed.
The scoreline of 1-0 didn’t do justice to the performance.
You might think the fact that we only scored one goal was underwhelming given the dominance we had but the visitors had two keepers in great form, even if their outfield players were average, at best.
We had so many goal scoring chances that, at times I was wondering when or if the breakthrough would come.
Then, half way through the second half, Paddy
Madden eased all our worries as he turned in the simplest of shots.
There were many reasons why we played so well, pivotal though was the return from suspension of Will Collar. He was the missing link in our midfield and this for me was the reason we played with such style – Collar, Croasdale, Sarcevic and Hippolyte ran the game, there was a hardly any sort of attack from the visitors the whole game. The three points were ours as was the top spot in the table, Wrexham must have been distraught!
Sunday brought the final game of the regular season and our visitors were Halifax. Now I’ve had a worry about Halifax since the day the fixture list came out, two words, Matty Warburton.
Matty has a great record against us, he seems to be able to score at every opportunity but on Sunday it was once again a case of County dominance, we camped out in their half and completely dominated the game.
The nerves were settled after just 10 minutes when Paddy shot from the edge of the box to put us one up, we were on the verge of becoming champions for the second time in four years.
The news from Dagenham filtered through that the Welshmen were losing and suddenly there was a real party atmosphere on three sides of the ground.
Will Collar doubled our lead in the second half to cue the start of some monumental celebrations.
The sight of Liam Hogan and Paddy Madden lifting the trophy will stay with us all forever and I don’t think I’ve ever been hugged by so many people in all my life. We’re an EFL team again and doesn’t it feel good?