BOGIEMAN OFFERS RELIEF FROM COUNTY HORROR SHOW

AMID the acrimony and sheer frustration at Stockport County's spectacular nose-dive into the dark and dismal depths of sub-professional, part-time, regional football, one club icon remains absolutely unblemished.

Edgeley Park – the football holy land any blue-blooded Cheadle Ender happily calls home – is, indeed, forever being beautiful.

Don't believe for one deluded minute that this is mere royal blue-tinted conjecture; a throwaway, emotional statement summoned from the tired heart of an over sensitive, overwhelmed season ticket holder.

Nope. It is stone cold fact.

So, while a section of fans aim their ire at what many of them claim are little short of pantomime villains in the club’s boardroom; and former board members fire salvos back across their bows in the form of legal threats for online name-calling, Edgeley Park remains unsullied by the in-fighting.

Don’t take this humble scribe’s word for it – just ask any of the new players recently signed up to do battle for the Hatters in next season’s Conference North Division.

Not one of them asked if the irate former board member was really intending to sue a fans forum or whether a fans organisation would actually launch a coup aimed at swiping the carpet from under the feet of those currently sitting around the boardroom table.

They were all interested in one thing and one thing only – walking out onto the pitch on a Saturday afternoon to the earsplitting soundtrack of 3,000 raucous voices inside a bear-pit of a football ground swathed in blue and white.

Ian Bogie, the proud Geordie football boss charged with the Herculean task of bringing the good times back to SK3, used the lure of atmospheric match days on the stunning green baize in front of that 3,000-strong baying mob of football mad Stopfordians to convince the new breed to sign on the dotted line.

The fans have the almost otherworldly magnetic pull of Edgeley Park to thank for the unexpected calibre of new recruits ready to pull on the team’s blue Umbro kit and fight to put County back where the club belongs next season.

Ian Bogie may not have had to try too hard to convince his chosen match-day assassins why their immediate future lay at Edgeley Park but his canny Geordie football heart knew exactly how to turn ‘interested’ into ‘where do I sign?’.

“I just brought them to Edgeley Park. Walked them, slowly, around the ground. Let them soak up the atmosphere of this old place,” he tells me, his words falling effortlessly from his lips like the enchanting, whispered tones of a grandfather relaying folklore and legend to his open-mouthed, goggle-eyed grandkids.

“Then I talked to them about the crowds. We’d be walking around the ground and I’d tell them about 3,000 supporters cheering them on. Tell them what the Cheadle End sounds like when it roars for a goal. It’s quite something. I didn’t have to say much more than that.”

Is it any wonder he’s got such an unexpectedly mouth-watering group of players to commit to the cause already, with more equally-impressive signatures on the way?

Sitting in Ian Bogie’s presence, listening to the way he talks about the game, how his sentences fall away into an almost inaudible hush before they reach their conclusion – it is intoxicating for anyone with a love of football.

His words give hope. His heart is big and his desire for victory, to become a hero among football-lovers, is tangible.

He compares Edgeley Park and those who come to worship at its altar to the most passionate of supporters from his home town of Newcastle.

Geordie supporters are universally renowned for their passion for the beautiful game. It is infectious and the stuff of legend how much the game means to them.

In Bogie’s eyes, the slumbering giant that is Stockport County is not much different.

“Places like Stockport and Newcastle are very similar,” he says. “The fans here live for the game on a Saturday. It is massively important for them. A way of life for many.

“Having played at Edgeley Park in front of these fans and now managed the club on match day, I can tell you without a moment’s hesitation that these fans deserve so much more.

“They’re hurting. And I totally understand why. I know what it feels like to hurt that way. This is a proper football club with proper fans. Last season we were at the bottom of the table for a great deal of it and yet this team was still the fourth best supported in the whole Conference National.

“So, if you ask how I convinced these new players to sign for Stockport County, I didn’t really have to. The ground and the fans sell this place to anyone who cares about proper football.”

Bogie aims to right a few wrongs during his tenure at Edgeley Park.

Football first.

“We are delighted with the players we have got so far,” he says. “There will be another four or five who will join us before August 17. And there’s a couple of crackers among those yet to arrive.

“They have to be the right players though – we don’t want or need anyone here who doesn’t want to be here for the right reasons. Next season will be tough, we’re not kidding ourselves, which is why we are going for mostly players who are proven at this level and above.

“Clubs will be coming to Stockport and will raise their game. Every week. This new squad of players has to be able to handle that. To expect it and be prepared for it.

“Having said that, we are really optimistic about the new season. It will be a good season for Stockport County. We will have an 18 or 19 man squad and I won’t be starting the season off with any loan players – I want players here who feel a sense of belonging to this club, feel this is their club.

“We aim to have six defenders, six midfielders, four strikers and two goalkeepers in the squad and a few of those players must have a utility aspect to their game so that they can play in a few different positions if necessary.

“We are putting together a team of players here who are prepared to run through brick walls for this team. With that attitude we will win a lot of games next season.

“Look, we have had a royal kick in the bollocks as a club over the last five years. But I am positive about how we are doing and I believe we will be more than capable of getting promotion at the first attempt. This time next season I fully intend that me and Alan (Lord) will be sitting here planning for our first games back in the Conference National.”

If, following the public shenanigans between board and supporters last season and following relegation in the final game, supporters are still unsure about which side the club’s bread is buttered, Ian Bogie has absolutely no doubt.

“The supporters are the most important part of this club.

“Come August 17 we will give them a squad that will strike fear in the heart of every team they play next season.”

And there’s a future star tantalisingly teetering on the horizon, according to Bogie.

“There’s Rhys Turner, part of the Myerscough set up, and Alan Lord reckons he’s the most talented footballer he’s seen in years. He’s a young lad but we are all massively excited about him.”

How ironic that, after the horror show of the last few seasons, the end of the nightmare could be down to the Bogieman.