The Long Way Home: The Rise, Fall and Rebirth of Stockport County from Football League Glory to Non-League Exile and Back

What happens when a football club loses almost everything except its supporters?

For more than 140 years, Stockport County have experienced almost every extreme of English football. They rose from local beginnings to the second tier, defeated Manchester City, made repeated journeys to Wembley and turned Edgeley Park into the centre of a proud football town.

Then the foundations began to collapse.

Financial mistakes, unstable ownership and administration sent County tumbling through the divisions. In 2011, they lost their place in the Football League. Two years later, a club that had once finished eighth in the second tier was playing regional football in the sixth.

The Long Way Home tells the full story of that rise, fall and rebirth, from the foundation of Heaton Norris Rovers in 1883 to County’s renewed pursuit of Championship football in 2026.
It follows the managers, players, owners and supporters who shaped the club, including Danny Bergara’s revolution, the record-breaking 1996-97 season under Dave Jones, Jim Gannon’s long-awaited Wembley triumph, the trauma of administration and non-league exile, and the modern revival under Mark Stott and Dave Challinor.

The return to the Football League in 2022 was not the end of the journey. County reached Wembley in their first season back, won League Two with a club-record Football League points total in 2024, finished third in League One in consecutive seasons and returned to Wembley twice in 2026. The book closes with Jimmy McNulty taking charge of a club no longer fighting merely to survive, but preparing another attempt to reach the Championship.
At its heart, this is about far more than one football club.

It is about the unforgiving world of the English lower leagues, the damage poor decisions can inflict and the patient work required to rebuild a broken institution. It is also about the loyalty that survives when trophies, status and familiar opponents have disappeared.

Above all, it is about the bond between a team, a ground and the town that refused to let either one go.

Richly researched and told with warmth, insight and affection, The Long Way Home will appeal not only to Stockport County supporters, but to anyone fascinated by promotion and relegation, non-league football, supporter culture and the community clubs that give English football its identity.

This is not simply the story of how Stockport County found their way home.
It is the story of why they never stopped belonging.