Leaving a legacy to be proud of is ultimately the true essence of life, and fundamental to turning career achievements into memories that stand the test of time is knowing when you have done all you can.
Sport is littered with stories of players or coaches who carried on too long, doing more harm than good to all they had accomplished previously. Muhammad Ali just could not walk away, Michael Jordan at the Washington Wizards didn’t sit right, while the final Arsene Wenger Arsenal years became a painful experience.
Stockport County director of football and chef executive Simon Wilson, who is one step away from overseeing a remarkable rise from non-league football to the Championship, is aware that the time is right to step aside.
Wilson will leave after Stockport hope to have succeeded in the League One play-offs, six years into an outrageously ambitious seven-year plan to get County – a team initially without a training ground and with part-time players competing in regional football – to the English second tier. All in a sustainable way.
“This never happens does it, really?” Wilson tells The i Paper. “To be able to leave on good terms like this. That’s the most important thing.
“Everything is there for the club to carry on growing, sustainably, from the practices we have put in place.”
Simon Wilson is hoping for a Disney ending with Stockport (Photo: Getty)When Wilson joined Stockport in 2020, it seemed like an odd career move. After 10 years in various roles at the now global footballing behemoth Manchester City, he became chief football officer at Sunderland to work with David Moyes.
Taking charge of a historically chaotic fifth-tier club under new ownership was certainly a gamble. One, however, that has paid off in ways Wilson could never have imagined.
“The fifth tier was never on my radar,” Wilson says. “But meeting Mark [Stott, owner] and this journey at County is the best thing I’ve ever done,” he continues.
“I loved my time at City. The first period was when the Abu Dhabi takeover happened, and that was really exciting. Then the second half, moving to a role in the City Football Group, taking City to the world, that was also exciting. But you are just one of many at somewhere as slick as City.
“This is more real. When you are on open-top buses and there are grandmas with their grandchildren in Stockport shirts you see how much this matters, what we do here. Hopefully we get one more celebration, but if we don’t we have everything in place to carry on.”
Stockport club president Steve Bellis holds court like no other. One of the tales he loves to recount is the story of just how far the club fell.
Tales like how this once second-tier staple had matches delayed because smoke from a local allotment on an away match had drifted onto the pitch. Or how Stockport’s first team were kicked off the training pitch they shared with a local Under-11s side.
Stockport, the town, is massively on the up. Dubbed the “new Berlin” for its quirky vibe and burgeoning food scene, Stockport is amid a £56m development project to revamp its central area, the largest-ever town regeneration project of its kind.
Stockport are two games away from the second tier (Photo: Getty)The team’s rise has mirrored the town’s growth. Only, on the football side, they have done it without splashing record amounts, the anti-Wrexham way.
Owner Mark Stott is a local businessman, one who cares about the community impact Stockport’s football club has on its town – a sadly all-too-rare personality in the modern era.
What Stott needed was someone who could oversee promotion after promotion, while building a club to be proud of.
“Mark said to me ‘I want to get this team to the Championship, how much will it take to get there?’,” Wilson adds. “I then gave a figure, based on football spend and said, ‘with a bit of luck we will get there’. The football spend is not much over that initial planned figure, and we could end up ahead of schedule on timescale.
“We always wanted to put something in place where if we didn’t win, it could all carry on. We have an academy that is doing really, really well. We have a community programme in place where every £1 spent means £6 in social value. We have restored local pride. Kids have Stockport shirts on, not [Manchester] City and United. It has just been so worthwhile.
“Wrexham has become that, but certainly initially it wasn’t. They obviously smashed the revenue streams for League One, but still lost £17m, whereas we lost £9m and finished a place below them. £9m is still a lot of money, but we are giving a lot of wider benefits to the community for the money. It is all about creating an environment where people can grow – that is what I am most proud of.”
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Daniel Storey: Bradford City and an unthinkable change Pete Hall: Bolton Wanderers and a £14m ticking time bombStockport have already announced Damien Allen as Wilson’s successor in the director of football role, someone Stott identified and Wilson helped nurture from being a PE teacher to academy director, in the hope that the most solid of foundations laid by the outgoing chief won’t go to waste.
As for Wilson himself, he will consider his next role carefully. For now, after Stockport hopefully see his ambitious plans come to fruition one year early over the next week, it is time to reflect on all he has achieved. Something he, more than most, has earned the right to do.
“I am a fixer-upper,” Wilson adds. “I like growth opportunities. There aren’t many football clubs who are genuinely in a position to do that.
“For now, I am enjoying my final moments here, doing all the things I like – watching training, being around the team. Get this season done and support the transition.
“We are desperate to get to Wembley, that’s the Disney ending. Either way, I am lucky that I have this story to tell of what we have achieved here, and people I can call friends for the rest of my life.”
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