Yes, my take on this whole business is as much to do with the town, and how County's going up will be good for it, as with the club itself. I've got a sort of sneaking affection for Stockport from all those years back. It was a gritty, grotty town, yet it had somehow survived the industrial revolution (and its decline), and was sort of making a desperate attempt to be part of the ‘swinging sixties’!
There was a shop called Seven Miles Out which I used to frequent as the apprentice hippy that I was. Joss sticks! Patchouli! Girls in long flowing dresses with headbands!! Woodstock comes to the grim industrial north!!! As a lad who'd been serving a prison sentence for ten years (boarding school), this was magic.
As I've said, I saw one or two gigs at the College of Technology. I think I saw a group called the Purple Gang there, singing “Granny Takes a Trip”. I've got a hazy memory of it, anyway. Also saw a group called Stack Waddy, whose one foray into recording was the memorably named LP, Bugger Off!
And County was part of all that. It was handy to have a local club, if only to remind me of what astounding football I was seeing at Maine Rd.
Kev was recently asked to comment on his team mates' haircuts (he can talk!). Asked about Phil, he said, with an ironic smile, “Well, it's simply a Stockport haircut. If you go to Stockport, that's the haircut you see.”
Made me laugh.