Key Takeaways
- Tracey Neville targets promotion to WSL2 for Stockport County Women by 2029.
- The club will re-brand from “Ladies” to “Women” this summer and launch a girls’ academy.
- Neville, new managing director, wants Stockport to become the North-West’s first-choice destination for female players.
Tracey Neville has swapped the netball court for the football pitch and set herself a fresh mountain to climb: transform volunteer-run Stockport County Women into a professional “superpower” within three years.
The 49-year-old, who guided England’s netballers to Commonwealth gold in 2018, took charge of the fourth-tier side in February after club bosses were blown away by a speech she gave at Edgeley Park last November. Sunday’s final league game against Leeds will mark the last outing under the old “Stockport County Ladies” banner before a summer re-brand ushers in the new era of “Stockport County Women”.
“My task is to make this the place where local girls dream of playing,” Neville told reporters. “We want WSL2 football here inside three seasons and we want our own academy feeding it with home-grown talent.”
Stockport currently sit seventh in the FA Women’s National League Division One North. Neville admits climbing the next two tiers will be “brutally hard”, but she is already touring clubs as far down as tier five to study best practice in coaching, governance and fan engagement. Training will gradually increase from twice a week to full-time as budgets grow.
“You don’t erect a mountain overnight,” she said. “But every big climb starts with solid ground work.”
Although she still confuses the occasional football phrase, Neville insists her job is not to pick the team but to build the environment around it. “I spot talent, demand standards and bring in specialists who know the game better than I ever will,” she explained.
Having grown up on Manchester United terraces, Neville believes she would have chosen football had today’s pathways existed. Now she is determined to provide those pathways for the next generation. “Creating careers in women’s sport is why I get up in the morning,” she added. “Stockport is my next arena for that mission.”
