Stockport Sports

Stockport Sports FC 

Ground: The Neil Rourke Memorial Stadium

Capacity: 2,384

Club Founded: 1970

Club Dissolved: 2015

Stockport Sports FC led a tough existence when the club tried to compete in a competitive part of the world for the attention of non-league fans before eventually calling it a day. Here is their story.

Club History

Early years

The club was formed in 1970 as Woodley Athletic FC, based in Woodley, a suburb of Stockport in Greater Manchester. They competed in the Manchester League, winning the Division One title before finishing Premier Division runners-up in 1992-93.

Sustained top-seven finishes eventually led to promotion to the North West Counties League (NWCL) in 1997, once improvements to enclose the Lambeth Grove Stadium were completed. Floodlights were installed before the team lifted the Cheshire Cup in 2004

Liam Dickinson

The 'Steelmen' were promoted to Division One of the Northern Premier League (NPL). A massive investment programme improved the club's facilities, including the installation of an artificial pitch, so the club could improve their income streams throughout the week. 2005-06 saw Sports reach the playoffs, losing their semifinal to Gresley Rovers.

Star forward Liam Dickinson was sold to Stockport County for £2,000 with additional clauses on future sell-on fees. County sold Dickinson and owed Sports £150,000 from the deal. However, County entered administration and didn't have the cash to pay, leading to financial uncertainty for Woodley.

The End

Worse was to follow at the end of the 2011-12 season when Sports were demoted from the NPL due to ground-grading issues. Back in the NWCL, they changed their name from Woodley to Stockport Sports.

They had points deducted in 2013-14 but still achieved a mid-table finish. Sports withdrew from the competition halfway through the following season, with their playing record being expunged after member clubs voted to expel them.

My visit

Monday 19th July 2010

I was in Manchester for a few days during my annual leave from work and keen to clock up plenty of new grounds. My arrival at Woodley Sports had been rescheduled from my original plans because my train from London was late.

I had intended to visit when I alighted at Stockport earlier in the day. Instead, I travelled to The Neil Rourke Memorial Stadium, as the ground was now called, by catching a train from Piccadilly to Woodley station after visiting some other venues.

The area seemed quite rural. I used my misleading A-Z map, which led me along small paths into a council estate and eventually onto the ground. I had read in the Non-League Paper of a game being abandoned at the ground a few seasons earlier when an arrow from a crossbow landed on the artificial pitch. 

Without being disrespectful, I could see how it happened after walking through the estate. I entered the car park past a smart bowls club and saw an open gate into the ground. A gentleman was doing odd jobs, and he couldn’t have been more helpful or friendly. 

The stadium was very smart, with a good-sized seated Main Stand as the major structure. There was another stand containing seats and standing behind one goal. The rest of the ground consisted of open, flat standing areas. I was encouraged to go out onto the 3G artificial pitch to get better photos of the Main Stand and to generally go anywhere I wanted. 

It was lovely to come across someone so proud of their own club. Woodley Sports was just as important to him as Camp Nou, and Barcelona are no doubt to a worker at the Catalan giants. I left, passing the estate and onto the main Stockport Road, past some decent-looking pubs and onto Bredbury railway station to commence my next port of call at Abbey Hey FC.