We quiz boss Jim Gannon on handling the mounting expectation at Stockport
NEXT summer will mark a decade since the end of Stockport County’s 106-year residence in the Football League. “It’s strange,” says manager Jim Gannon, who played over 400 games for the Hatters and is now in his third spell in charge.
“But to my little lad, Stockport are a Non-League team. He doesn’t understand that I played for them in the Championship, beating the likes of Man City!”
Yet if a rematch with Raheem Sterling and Riyad Mahrez may be inconceivable, a return to the Football League is certainly not.
It isn’t the budget-beating eighth-place finish secured last season, Stockport’s first at Step 1 since relegation in 2013.
Nor that Gannon has finished each of his ten campaigns at Edgeley Park in a higher league position than the last.
It is the investment of local businessman Mark Stott, the return to full-time football and six months of statement signings that have transformed the Hatters into bona fide title contenders.
Port Vale striker Richie Bennett. Stevenage’s Alex Reid. Salford duo Liam Hogan and Lois Maynard. Hartlepool defender Mark Kitching. James Jennings and brother Connor.
Most eye-catching of all the arrivals is John Rooney, whose 17 goals from midfield last season earned Barrow promotion and scooped a Player of the Season gong at the National Game Awards.
Between them, those eight players boast FIVE promotions to the EFL – and none of them come cheap. Does Gannon agree, then, that Stockport are now amongst the division’s high rollers? “We’re not pretentious about what we are,” says the 51-year-old.
“We’re not making £200,000 signings. We’re not paying out four grand a week in wages. We’ve not tried to psychologically intimidate anybody by blowing them out of the water financially.
“We haven’t got the biggest budget in the division by a long way. But, yes, we’ve got the opportunity now to compete at the upper end of the league with the kind of budget you need to do that.
“The players we’ve signed are good players. They know the National League. They know how to perform over a long period of time.
“If it’s play-offs, they know about those. Liam Hogan’s captained Salford to promotion. Connor Jennings has done it with Tranmere. John Rooney just won the league. “These players all have a lot of respect for NonLeague because playing at this level is what forged their reputations. They’ve enjoyed their achievements and they want to do it again.
“I’m sure people will be scathing and say ‘They’ve come for money’ or whatever. But the chairman has a tremendous vision about what he wants to achieve over the next five or six years.
“Simon Wilson, our director of football, has sold that to players and agents. They see the ambition, they’re excited, and they’re willing to take a step backwards to move two forwards.”
Hybrid model
Stockport, of course, might already have taken that step. Unbeaten in six matches when the season was curtailed, the Hatters were subsequently demoted from the final play-off spot when points-per-game was used to determine final standings.
Already bolstered by the signings of Hogan, Maynard and Bennett, Gannon is convinced that Stockport would have sealed a top-seven spot.
“Ourselves and Harrogate were the form teams in the division at that time,” he says. “We were confident we’d have hit the play-offs.”
Nevertheless, he is philosophical about missing out.
“I know a lot of people will probably look at the size of the club, the new investment and wonder what might have been,” he adds.
“But, remember, we were playing in National League North last season. When we came into this league, with our budget and the hybrid model, we just wanted to consolidate.
“Having spoken to many managers and players, we were way down budget-wise. To finish eighth – even given what happened – is something we should look on with great satisfaction.
“The only disappointment I had was for the teams trying to get out of trouble. They might have got on a good run, invested in a couple of players. Then all of a sudden, the season is over and they’re judged prematurely as failures. I had a lot of empathy for them.
“The other part that disappointed me was how simplistic the formula was. Nobody wants a complicated mathematical model, but there was no consideration of home and away games, or of form.
“I suggested that if you’ve six games left, a fairer measure would be to use the previous six games. If you’ve got seven games, use the previous seven.
“Maidenhead, for instance, had lost five in a row. Teams like AFC Fylde and Ebbsfleet had picked up, so you could
argue that they would have finished above Maidenhead. That’s a rough example but, givmount of time they had, I just fellt the authorities could have come up with something a little bit more sophisticated.”
Gannon, who was furloughed along with his players, returned to the training ground at the start of the week and plans to train on a Monday-Wednesday-Friday basis until a start date for the new season is confirmed.
Unpredictable
“It was a long time off, and it was great,” says the Northern Irishman. “You can centre yourself, get to know your family again and just unwind completely. You probably don’t realise how stressed you are, how run down you’ve got.
“It’s a chance to take stock, to analyse. To read all those books you never got time to read. It was always a half hour here, half an hour there. In lockdown it was half a day here and half a day there.
“I’ve been doing a coaching manual, and it’s quite time-consuming writing down everything you’ve learned. So the break has been very beneficial.
“At the same time, there comes a point where you need to feel part of something, to do something constructive. It feels good to be back.”
Back, and better than any Stockport team for many years. Gannon, though, has cautioned against arrogance and expectation.
“When we won Conference North, other teams with bigger budgets and better structures should have finished above us,” he says. “It’s not about the quality of the investment, it’s about how hard the players work and how well you can gel talented individuals into a good team.
“We can all look at the lessons of Barrow last year. But we can also look at the lessons of Fylde or Wrexham, play-off teams whose fortunes turned so dramatically. There’s a lot of good teams in Non-League. Good managers, resourceful people. And it’s so unpredictable.
“There were times last season that if you looked at the bottom four teams and the top four teams in isolation, you’d quite reasonably ask ‘What end of the table is that?’. Nobody would have put Chesterfield, Fylde and Wrexham down there.
“If we continue to invest and put a squad together, people will obviously say ‘They’re going to have a strong season’. I get that. But so will Harrogate, Notts County, Boreham Wood, Stevenage or Macclesfield when they come down.
“We’re confident we’ll challenge. We’ve got the right quality of player. We can look forward with positivity and optimism. But nobody is taking anything for granted.”