The Streets of Stockport - Day 2
Introducing the eagerly-awaited sequel, The A6 Part Two
Sunday 29 October 2023
NEXT HOME GAME: Worksop – Saturday 4 November, 3pm
NEXT AWAY GAME: Swindon – Saturday 11 November, 3pm
Dear County fans, Stopfordians, and anyone else joining us today, a very warm welcome to your Sunday edition of The Scarf My Father Wore.
History was made in Stockport yesterday, as Dave Challinor’s men beat Tranmere 2-0 to record an 11th consecutive victory in all competitions, something no County side had done previously in 140 years. I might create a little bit of history in the town myself with my charity walk ‘The Streets of Stockport’ as I doubt anyone has walked every single street across the borough before. There’s a long way to go before my challenge is completed, but I have now conquered both sides of the A6, with the second part of my trek along Stockport’s main thoroughfare available for your reading pleasure today. At the time of writing, I’ve raised £693 for the mental health charity Mentell. If you’d like to get me past the £700 barrier today, please click here.
Today’s edition is sponsored by Riks Fencing & Landscaping. We’ve got a 10% discount available for readers, which might come in very handy with the weather we’ve been having recently. Further details below.
Total distance so far: 38.66 miles
Total steps so far: 67,558
Total raised so far: £693
Further information on the walk can be found by clicking here.
Des Junior
With a couple of stops along the way, not to mention delivering around 1,000 flyers to numerous homes and businesses, it took me eight hours to reach Disley on day one of my walk. Today, I’m there in 17 minutes. A Northern Rail train would struggle to beat most forms of transport in a race, but it is a lot quicker than two legs.
Once again, I’m starting in a location that technically isn’t part of the walk. Disley falls under Cheshire East. That’s where I ended up on day one, however, so it just seems logical to start here this morning, to pick up the trail so to speak. Disley’s only a stone’s throw from the Stockport boundary anyway (just like McDonald’s in Levenshulme, which was my starting point four days ago). After my Buxton train pulls into Disley at 9.50am, I’m back in Stockport within 20 minutes.
The Disley stretch of today’s walk is lovely – a meandering country stroll past the council’s Memorial Park and then the entrance to Lyme Park. As soon as I cross into Stockport, however, there’s drama. Without any warning, my bright orange Sainsbury’s carrier bag splits, sending hundreds and hundreds of flyers crashing to the pavement. I don’t want to appear uncultured, but I’m going to make a Home Alone reference for the second consecutive article. You know that scene where Kevin’s walking home from his solo shopping trip, and his groceries go flying? Well, that, and it’s made even worse by the fact there’s a long queue of drivers gawping at me whilst they’re stuck at temporary traffic lights.
A car horn beeps. I ignore it. It beeps again. I continue salvaging my flyers off the pavement. On the third beep, I decide to turn around and I’m greeted by a friendly-looking driver beckoning me over to his car. The window winds down and the man behind the wheel hands me a sturdy Waitrose bag. The kindness of strangers, personified by a bloke called, bizarrely enough, Kevin, stuck in traffic on the A6.
It’s a heartwarming start to the day, which gets even sweeter when I come across the scrumptious-sounding Chocolate Street in High Lane. A brick passageway painted black and white leads me to a courtyard of businesses, one of which is the hugely popular Simon Dunn Chocolatier. Unfortunately, it’s closed on a Monday, so I can’t treat myself to some of Simon’s delicious creations, which are regularly devoured by Sir Alex Ferguson, Jason Manford and quite a few of the Coronation Street cast.
In addition to completing the other side of the A6 today, I’ve also decided to tick off some of the cul-de-sacs leading off it. I’m soon heading down Middlewood Road, which leads to the Middlewood Way, and Middlewood train station. Everything’s called Middlewood, like you’d expect to find on a children’s TV show narrated by someone like Alan Carr. It does possess that pleasant village feel, I must admit. There’s sheep grazing in the fields, glass bottles of milk on doorsteps, and an old bloke raking his front lawn greets me with a “How do you do?” as I walk up his drive to post a flyer through his letterbox.
The tranquility of today’s walk is shattered, however, when I come across something on Middlewood Road that scares the shit out of me. On the wall of a front garden, a plastic baby has been skewered on top of some sort of audio contraption, which invites me to press a red button if I dare. Feeling brave (and knowing there’s an old bloke a few doors down with a rake to protect me if I’m about to raise the devil) I take up the challenge. Click on the video yourself to see what happens, if you dare…
Now, if you’re relaxing on your sofa, and Barney comes on the TV, I’m sure it’s rather pleasant. But when that theme tune starts emanating from that device, it’s bloody terrifying. I’m half expecting to feel a tap on my shoulder, turning round to see Ghostface from the Scream movies stood in front of me. I do manage to escape from Middlewood Road unscathed, vowing never to return unless there’s someone by my side to hold my hand.
It’s a relief to make it back to the A6 in one piece and amongst people once more. From the sedate surroundings of a sleepy High Lane, I’m soon heading into the hustle and bustle of Hazel Grove. Creepy children’s dinosaurs aside, I do have to say I’ve enjoyed my walk through Disley and High Lane once again. It does feel as though life moves at a slower pace in that neck of the woods, which isn’t a bad thing in this modern world where everyone’s obsessed with gizmos and gadgets, and daily life seems to thunder along at 100 miles an hour. In fact, I’m greeted by a symbol of this non-stop hullabaloo when I come to a 24-hour petrol station, which includes a vape shop, a Starbucks On The Go, and a Greggs – accompanied by the largest Greggs sign I’ve ever seen. The advertising approach isn’t exactly subtle, but it works, as I nip in for a tomato soup. The guy who’s next in line then asks the confused-looking girl behind the counter if she can put two sausage rolls on a barmcake for him. Welcome to Stockport.
Without being disrespectful, I reckon two-sausage-rolls-on-a-barmcake man is the type of chap you’d find working in a garage with a calendar of naked women on the wall. You might think those things were consigned to the scrapheap a decade or two ago, but I can confirm they’re alive and well on an industrial estate in Hazel Grove. I certainly wasn’t expecting to stumble upon a pair of Double-Ds on my travels today.
I’ve had a walk down School Street, which leads to a fairly quiet industrial estate, the type of place you’d dispose of a body. It’s actually like going back in time this place. Along with the pair of breasts I encounter (slotted in the middle of the September and October dates for 2023, by the way, so they are still being printed somewhere), there’s a sign advertising industrial units to let with an 061 number, which went out of service in 1995. There are a few mechanics and sprayers and welders about, but this place does feel well off the beaten track. Even the birds (well, excluding the one baring all on the calendar…) don’t seem to visit here, as evidenced by a pile of untouched breadcrumbs on top of a wheelie bin.
After a quick orange juice at The George & Dragon – where I get chatting to a County fan ordering a number of sorbets for his family after lunch – it’s time for an extremely nostalgic section of today’s walk: my birthplace, my secondary school and my first kiss.
Since making my entrance into this world at 9.55 on a Saturday night in September 1984, I’ve found myself back in Stepping Hill Hospital on a few occasions over the years (mainly with football-related injuries) but I’ve never really stood and had a reminiscent look at the building, reflecting on the place where I was born. As I’ve said before, I’m eager to raise a fantastic amount of money for Mentell as I pound the streets of Stockport. But the walk is always something I’ve wanted to do on a personal basis as well, exploring areas of the borough I’ve never set foot in, whilst also taking a nostalgic look back at those familiar places which have formed my childhood, teenage and adult years in my hometown.
Obviously, I don’t remember a single thing from the day I was born (although I do know County won 4-3 at Fuck You Wrexham that afternoon), but I can recall a plethora of memories from the five years I spent at Stockport Grammar School between 1996 and 2001. On day one, I mentioned how I left school at 16 to pursue a football course in Marple rather than stay on and complete sixth form, perhaps not making the most of the opportunity as I should. Although I did learn the word ‘plethora’ so those five years weren’t completely wasted.
It’s half-term which means the place is deserted, but the main gates are wide open, as there’s a couple of workmen milling about doing various jobs while the school’s 1,500 pupils are at home. Before I know it, I’m stood in the canteen, having been unable to resist the temptation to casually stroll into the old place for the first time since I left 22 years ago to try and become the next Alan Shearer.
Memories come flooding back instantly, starting with my former lunchtime routine in this very room. Students were allowed to choose a cold option or a hot option, but never both. A young Hinks, however, was regularly able to successfully manoeuvre both queues to engineer a delicious chips, cheese and salad sandwich. A bad boy I know, even at 13.
My first kiss should also have been in this place. The school itself, not the canteen. I was never the attention of a noncy dinner lady, not that I’m aware of. No, the girl in question had a surname directly next to mine in the register, which meant we were sat next to each other in most lessons for a number of years. A little bit of footsie ensued – which I must say is a thrilling way to relieve the monotony of a maths lesson on a Monday morning – before we were sort of going out. I say sort of, as I don’t think we were ever officially boyfriend and girlfriend, although we did start pairing up at school discos and parties for the slow dance at the end of the night, which around that time was a Spice Girls ballad immediately after a Linkin Park banger, which was always a bizarre transition.
Eventually, this girl made it abundantly clear she wanted a kiss – something I’d never experienced before and was genuinely terrified of attempting as I was hung up on the fact I’d somehow do it wrong and therefore have the piss taken out of me for the rest of my school days. Jesus, this is embarrassing, but you have to understand I was never a kid who hung around in parks or on street corners, experimenting with things like alcohol or cigarettes or indeed the opposite sex from an early age. Every single night after school, I either played football, watched County play football, or told the likes of Kim Källström and Tonton Zola Moukoko how to play football on Championship Manager. Alas, I never shared a kiss with my footsie partner (who went on to play hockey for England), as she soon found herself a proper boyfriend, and I’d have to wait until leaving school before locking lips with a young lady for the first time.
Come with me further along the A6 if you want to hear about my first kiss. Ah, here we are: Stockport College. It’s the summer of 2001. I’ve just finished my GCSEs, and the scared little boy who’s afraid of kissing a girl is now definitely ready to become a man. He’s still spending an unhealthy amount of time playing Championship Manager in his bedroom, but he’s ready to start dabbling with alcohol, and girls, and even a cigarette or two in Heaven & Hell. (Don’t tell his mum.)
Towards the end of the 2000-01 season, I was still going to County away games on the train with my dad, but on the journey home from trips to the likes of Tottenham, Portsmouth and QPR, while he read the paper or worked on his laptop, I started getting to know a group of fans a couple of years older than me. We became good friends and once my exams were done and dusted, my mum reluctantly let me join them for my first ever night out. The destination? The Students Union, or the SU as it was more affectionately known.
Over the course of five years at Stockport Grammar, I hadn’t kissed a single girl; by the end of my first night at the SU, I’d pulled six. (I genuinely felt like the king of the place, until my mate came along the following weekend and bagged seven.) It might have been the excitement of my first ever night out, it might have been the Hooch on tap or countless bottles of Smirnoff Ice I was knocking back, or it might even have been the fact I was a dead ringer for Noel from Hear’Say at the time. It was some introduction to Stockport nightlife anyway, locking lips with a sextet of young girls on the dancefloor.
If I’m honest, a major factor of my success that night was down to how easy it was to cop off in that place, with a tried-and-tested formula which worked for all of its punters. A guy would walk up to a girl on the dancefloor from behind (this is sounding a bit Russell Brand but bear with me) and start dancing with her by placing his hands on her waist. The girl would turn around and either immediately stick her tongue down the guy’s throat, or dismiss her admirer by casting him aside with a look of disgust on her face. A brutal way to be rejected, don’t get me wrong, but bloody brilliant when it worked.
Standing outside the college today, I can still hear “Castles in the Sky” by Ian Van Dahl in my mind, which was undoubtedly my soundtrack to that summer. The man playing it at the time in the SU would have been its resident DJ, Jonny Durex, who later moved to Thailand, where he’s now buried. God bless you, Jonny. You helped make that summer a memorable one.
Times change, and the SU closed its doors for the final time over a decade ago. The college itself is now going through a £23m transformation. Further along the A6, millions more are being spent on the ongoing redevelopment of the town centre. Most of the businesses between the college and McDonald’s are now derelict, but I’m glad to see Subway still going strong. After our hedonistic nights in the SU, my mates and I would always buy a footlong sandwich for the walk home to Heaton Norris, before lying on the grass at Bowerfold Open Space (“The Bonks”), looking out at the bright lights of Stockport.
Speaking of light, today’s is starting to fade, but I do have time to take a nice photo of Wycliffe Congregational Church on the corner of George’s Road. It was here, back in 1883, that a group of young gentlemen from the Sunday school formed a football team called Heaton Norris Rovers, later becoming Stockport County seven years later.
Less than an hour later, I’m at McVitie’s. This must surely be the first time I’ve walked past the factory and not had a whiff of biscuits fill my nostrils. On any other day, I’d probably feel a little disappointed, but after today’s nostalgic walk down the A6, I’m more in the mood for a snog and a Smirnoff Ice than a cuppa and a custard cream. In the end, I make do with a 192 to Manchester and a comedy night at the Frog & Bucket. I’m tempted to get on stage myself. If nothing more, I’d definitely get a laugh telling people I thought I could become the next Alan Shearer at 16.
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Photo of the day
Edgeley Park, Stockport
In 140 years, Stockport County have never won 11 games in a row. They have now. A huge congratulations to Dave Challinor and his County side, making history with yesterday’s 2-0 victory at home to Tranmere.
Today in SK
🍽 Food and drink
Enjoy a delicious Sunday lunch at the Andrew Arms (SK6) with a three course meal priced at just £19.95. Call 0161 484 5392 to book a table.
🎶 Free jukebox
The Nelson Tavern (SK1). 3pm - 6pm.
🥁 Live music
St. Alban at Bask (SK1). 7.30pm. Tickets £8.
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