Stockport had a first season to forget after relegation from League Two and for a while were battling a second consecutive demise. The season started with a lot of optimism as local investor Tony Evans came in with big promises and also brought former Liverpool hero Didi Hamann as new manager. The German was taking his first job as a manager and started with a squad built from from scratch. The most noticeable signing was Sean McConville who came in from League Two's Accrington Stanley while Nick Chadwick, Antonio German and Tom Elliott were the ones expected to come up with the goals. Stockport looked solid at the back in the early weeks but were finding it hard to get goals. Amazingly, they drew all of their first six away games in the league and overall eight of the first 11. The team was playing some decent stuff but seemed to lack identity and Hamann was constantly chopping and changing the side which hardly helped the newly-assembled side to settle. Things started to turn from mediocre to downright poor in October when Wrexham destroyed the Hatters 4:0. It quickly became clear that Hamann had little grasp how to stop the rot and the directors quickly pulled the plug on his short tenure after an early FA Cup exit at the hands of Southport. Former hero Jim Gannon, the man that led Stockport to promotion to League One a few years ago, was the man called to rescue the club. He got off to a dreadful start though, losing all of the first four games since taking charge, one of them being a 7:0 demolition at the hands of Grimsby. It became quickly clear to Gannon that the squad was shambles in terms of confidence and quality but he slowly and surely started to rebuild the team and finally celebrated a first win since October on the first day of 2012 - a 3:2 victory over Barrow. The team continued to linger in the drop zone but the players now looked hungry, working hard and stayed solid at the back more often than not. Gannon brought former players Paul Turnbull and Matty Mainwaring in while high earners like Matt Glennon and McConville were taken off the wage bill. This helped nurture a more unified group of players and a settled side. They pulled off impressive wins against top teams like Kidderminster and Wrexham but just when it looked like safety will be guaranteed, they were destroyed 6:1 by Alfreton and lost their next two games too. However, the three wins on the trot that followed, two of them by 4:0, all but secured safety at last and Stockport finished the season relatively well. The key to their salvation after an awful first few months was the bold decision of Gannon to rely on young players and stick with a settled side despite the quality at his disposal being quite poor.
