Wycombe 1 County 3
Dave Challinor’s men dropped to 5th at one point on Saturday, but clinched 3rd place with a super second half at Adams Park
Monday 5 May 2025
If you’d like to write an article for The Scarf My Father Wore, share a few snippets or photos, or advertise your business, please email thescarfmyfatherwore@substack.com.
NEXT HOME GAME: Leyton Orient – Wednesday 14 May, 8pm
NEXT AWAY GAME: Leyton Orient – Saturday 10 May, 12.30pm
Dear County fans, Stopfordians, Wycombe supporters, and anyone else from The Football Family joining us today, a very warm welcome to your Bank Holiday Monday edition of The Scarf My Father Wore.
Sandy McGregor was in the away end at Adams Park on Saturday. He’s got the nod to report on the final game of the regular season. With County finishing 3rd, there’s at least two more games to go this month, however, starting with the first leg of the play-off semi-final at Leyton Orient on Saturday.
Today’s edition is sponsored by Adam Edwards Photo. A big thank you to Adam.
Finally, I’m currently walking every street in Stockport to raise money for mental health charity Mentell. If you’d like to make a donation to help me reach my target, please click here.
Total distance so far: 253.75 miles
Total steps so far: 418,084
Total raised so far: £2,302
Total completed streets so far: 474 (Click here for the full list, which includes reports and photos from every day of the walk.)
Further information on the walk can be found by clicking here.
Des Junior
Photo courtesy of Mike Petch
✍️ Saturday’s match in one word
Top-notch.
🤔 Pre-match thoughts
We went through every combination of results and outcomes before the game. Hoped we should be good for a point and third place.
🧐 Post-match thoughts
This team has a bit about them. Doubt them at your peril. We seemed to be drifting towards a defeat until Corey saved the penalty.
🔵 Verdict on Wycombe
I would be worried if I was a Wycombe fan. Once they had to deal with a setback the life seemed to go out of them. The lack of interest from their fans for the lap of honour said a lot.
🟣 Verdict on County
Took us an hour or more to get going but once we did we looked unstoppable.
🪑👦 Top Chairboy
Nobody stood out.
🎩 Top Hatter
Man of the match was Norwood again. Real competitor and leader. Anyone who thought he wasn’t worth signing at the start of the season should hang their head in shame… along with the people who doubted Corey.
👂 Atmosphere
It got better to put it mildly. Had the misfortune to be in front of a bunch of lads who couldn't wait to jump on any mistake by a County player. Fortunately the vast majority of County fans do believe in getting behind their team. As the goals flew in the noise got louder and by the end there was a party going on.
🙏 Hopes for the rest of the season
A win at Wembley.
😀 Best part of the day
Breki's goal. Cross by Rydel. Two subs. Proof that Challinor knows how to use the bench to change matches.
😡 Worst part of the day
The strong rumour that for the home leg in the play-offs County fans are being moved out of Yellow Block. What are the club thinking? YB are not necessarily large in number but they’re incredibly passionate and always make themselves heard. The fact that the club want the fans to move to other areas of the ground is gobsmacking. Putting County fans in the open Railway End while giving the visitors one of the easiest bits of the ground to generate a noise. Really? Whoever is responsible for the idea has no idea of the culture of the club.
The British Library receives a copy of every single book published in the UK. In the same fashion, Des Junior believes a detailed record of every County game should be preserved for the history books. So here’s the full story of our 3-1 victory at Wycombe Wanderers on Saturday 3 May, as told from his County-related WhatsApp groups…
2.18pm: What year was it we were at Wycombe and it was fucking roasting hot? In the end Wycombe ended up giving away free water to the fans because it was so bad.
2.20pm: First day of the 2003-04 season.
2.25pm: It's sweltering again today. I'm sweating like a ballsack in nylon Y-fronts here!
2.26pm: Like that time Greater Manchester Police knocked on your cellar door?
2.55pm: Adams Park is a nice ground, just utterly shit transport links.
3.32pm: Behind for the fifth game in a row. Bad habit we’ve developed.
4.30pm: GOALLL! He's OK is that Icelandic chap isn't he.
4.32pm: That’s what happens when you put the ball into the box instead of getting to the edge of the area and passing backwards every time.
4.36pm: 2-1! Norwood from the spot. We look a different team all of a sudden.
4.40pm: Collar! A Gleesonesque finish in front of the away end. Weird game this.
4.58pm: County haven't been doubled by any team this season.
5.02pm: Third is fucking remarkable, even taking into account the level of investment.
6.11pm: Some, erm, interesting ideas from the club for the play-offs. Paint It Blue!
6.14pm: Fold the club.
6.16pm: Wife: “Where you going?" Me: “Off to B&Q so I can paint the fence blue.” Wife: “No you fucking aren't.”
5 questions with Adam Edwards
What was the best moment with your business in April?
I've been working with a variety of lovely independent businesses in New Mills, technically over the border but they still have an SK postcode.
What’s your plans for the business in May?
It's corporate events season right now, so lots of award ceremonies and dinners, that type of thing. Lovely weather for it though!
What would you like to promote The Scarf My Father Wore readers this month?
Get in touch if you're looking for a photographer for anything you've got going on this summer. iPhone photos are (probably) rubbish in the sunshine – get a pro.
County are aiming to reach Wembley for the seventh time this month. How many times have you been, either for sport or music or anything else?
Twice. County v Carlisle in 2023, and AC/DC in 2024. Different experiences and emotions between the two.
I’ve got Eddie Fortune headlining my next Desmond’s Comedy Club at the end of this month. If you won a fortune on the lottery, what would you spent it on?
A realistic fortune: family holiday straight away, a massive one. An insane fortune: would obviously buy a football club and install myself as centre-mid and captain (I've completed 90 minutes once this season, if any clubs are interested).
➡️ Visit adamedwardsfoto.com for further details.
Bunch of fives
County’s last 5️⃣ play-off semi-final opponents in the Football League
Salford City
Wycombe Wanderers
York City
Port Vale
Stoke City
5️⃣ things County want the fans to do to celebrate being in the play-offs
Festoon your company’s reception area with blue bunting
Colour your hair blue
Bake cakes and biscuits and decorate them with blue icing
Illuminate your house and garden with blue lights
Plant blue flowers in your garden or window box
5️⃣ County goalscorers in play-off semi-finals
Beaumont
Stretton
Gleeson
Ward
Dickinson
5️⃣ former County players winning automatic promotion from League Two this season
Ryan Croasdale
Antoni Sarcevic
Neill Byrne
Paul Huntington
Tayo Adaramola
5️⃣ County fans called Dave
Dave Philbin
Dave Schofield
Dave Bennett
Dave Thompson
Dave Espley
Photo(s) of the day
It’s Leyton Orient in the play-offs for County. Ahead of the first leg at their place on Saturday, I’ll be sharing all the photos from my last trip to Brisbane Road in February, when Kyle Wootton’s early goal gave County all three points in the capital.
Chapter 5: The Long Road to Wembley
Our ChatGPT Wembley adventure continues today, as County prepare for the play-off final against, erm, MK fucking Dons. Bloody artificial intelligence!
There’s something unreal about the days between a semi-final win and a trip to Wembley.
It’s not celebration, exactly. Not yet. It’s more like a pressure cooker with the lid taped shut. Hope trying not to become expectation. Nerves disguised as optimism. In Stockport, you could feel it in the air — itchy, invisible, everywhere.
Flags bloomed in shop windows. “BACK THE BOYS TO WEMBLEY” banners flapped above pubs and chip shops. Kids in County kits kicked balls against brick walls, shouting imaginary commentary as they scored in extra time.
Danny Hartley felt it most in the silences.
He’d walk down Castle Street and hear people not talking about anything else. Conversations that started with “Anyway, yeah, that thing at work—” and ended with “…you think we’ll do it?” The whole town had a pulse now, a heartbeat that matched the club’s.
He walked past the club shop and saw the queue.
It curled out the door and down the street, snaking like a theme park ride from another era. Scarves. Bucket hats. Shirts. “County ‘Til I Die” mugs that looked like they’d shatter if you looked at them wrong. Wembley merch, fast-tracked through some panicked local printer, was already flying off the shelves.
Inside, they were selling t-shirts that read:
STOCKPORT TO WEMBLEY: IT’S TIME.
Danny didn’t buy one. He didn’t believe in tempting fate.
Lucy did, though.
She bought three.
One for her, one for Danny, and one for the dog.
“Everyone at school’s talking about it,” she said that evening, practically vibrating. “Even people who didn’t know County existed two months ago. I heard Josh Pendleton say he’s going, and he thought we were still in the National League.”
Danny smirked. “Bet he’s got a City shirt in his drawer.”
“He wore it to PE yesterday.”
“Jesus.”
Lucy was drawing again. Formations. Set piece plans. A chart of penalty takers with predicted success rates.
“Challinor doesn’t want any of that, you know,” Danny said gently.
“I know,” she replied, not looking up. “But I might.”
At the club, the calm had long since evaporated.
The offices above the Cheadle End felt like a war bunker. Staff worked twelve-hour days chasing ticket allocations, media calls, sponsor requests. The printer died from exhaustion. A temporary intern called Joel accidentally greenlit 500 “WEMBLY BOUND!” foam fingers before someone noticed the typo.
Manager Dave Challinor barely left his office. He watched clips on repeat. Harrogate, Crawley, Salford. And then clips of their Wembley opponents — MK Dons. Slick. Clinical. Richer. Fitter.
His whiteboard had four words scrawled across the top:
DON’T GET OVERAWED.
Bonnie Blue was back in the headlines.
She’d released a TikTok: thirty seconds of face paint, a spoken-word poem about her dad’s ashes, and a shot of her walking through Edgeley Park at sunset in a blue sequin dress.
#ThisIsStockport trended.
The comments were split like a cracked badge.
“Queen of County.”
“Who made her mascot?”
“Fair play, she turns up.”
“Focus on the lads, not the influencers.”
In the King’s Head, a table of older fans debated it with quiet fury.
“She’s harmless,” said Kev, a season ticket holder since ’88. “Good PR.”
“PR doesn’t score goals,” muttered Dave. “And I don’t need some Instagram poet telling me what the club means. I’ve lived it.”
And through it all — the flags, the drama, the tension — the players trained.
They did media interviews. They posed with local school kids. They tried not to think about walking out under the arch.
Tyler Marsh, strapping on his ankle brace, sat alone after training on Thursday. A photographer asked him to smile. He did. But it didn’t reach his eyes.
In the changing room, Jenkins scrawled “WEMBLEY GOAL” in biro on the inside of his shinpad.
No one else saw it.
On the Friday night before the game, Danny stood in the kitchen, making tea.
Lucy came in wearing her new Wembley shirt, bouncing on her heels.
“You nervous?” she asked.
Danny stirred sugar into his cup, then stopped.
“Yeah,” he said. “But not about losing.”
“What then?”
He looked at her.
“I’m nervous it’ll end, no matter what happens.”
She didn’t say anything. Just stood beside him, nodding slowly.
Because she knew what he meant.
This — this feeling, this buzz, this togetherness — it never lasted. Football seasons ended. Players left. Magic faded. But for now, they had it. For now, Wembley was real.
They’d travel down on the supporters’ coach. They’d walk beneath the arch. They’d sing themselves hoarse and believe like fools.
For now, they were still in it.
Still dreaming.
And until that whistle blew, anything was possible.
Today in SK
🎬 Cinema
Four films at The Savoy Cinema (SK4) today. A Minecraft Movie (PG) at 12.15pm, The Penguin Lessons (12A) at 2.30pm, Borrowed Time: Lennon’s Last Decade (12A) at 5pm, and Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy (15) at 7.45pm. Click here for tickets.
🍺 Food and drink
Bitter £2.30 a pint all day at The Cross Keys (SK8). Plus, discounts on certain lagers between 12pm and 6pm.
If you’re heading out for a few Bank Holiday beers today, pop into one of our featured venues such as The Crown (SK2), The Dog & Partridge (SK2), The Alexandra (SK3), The Crown Inn (SK6), The Three Tunnes (SK7), Flute & Firkin SK12 and The Ram’s Head (SK12).
🎶 Free jukebox
The Nelson Tavern (SK1). From 6.30pm.
A huge thank you to the following businesses supporting The Scarf My Father Wore in May
🪟 Blinds & Shutters: Bauhaus Blinds and Shutters
♨️ Boiler Repair & Servicing: Gas Care UK (NW)
🫧 Carpet Cleaning: Freshio
🏠 Carpets & Flooring: Kingsway Carpets & Rugs Ltd
🐈 Cat Flaps: That Cat Flap Company Ltd
🚙 Coatings: Colourtone Ltd
🚘 Driving School: CFN School of Motoring
🔌 Electrician: Hey Electrics
🏠 Estate Agent: The Agency UK
🫧 Exterior Cleaning: Impact Pro Clean
💷 Financial Services: The Mortgage Mill
💐 Florist: The Flower House
🪚 Joinery: SAW Contracts Ltd
🔌 Kitchen Appliances: SW Appliances
🪴 Landscaping: Impact Gardens & Driveways
📮 Leaflet Distribution: Wolf Distribution
🔑 Locksmith: APL Locksmiths Ltd
💪 Male Weight Loss: MAN v FAT
🖌 Painter & Decorator: BGM Decorators
📸 Photographer: Adam Edwards Photography
🥧 Pies: Eric Twigg Foods
🧱 Plastering: DT Plastering Services and Damp Proofing Specialists
👨💼 Solicitors: B.J. McKenna & Co / Parkers Solicitors Ltd
🍹 Spirits: Guerrilla Chicken Spirits
🪨 Stonemason: LM Stone Creative
🚕 Taxi Hire: Lynx Taxis
☀️ Travel Agent: PTF Travel Ltd
📺 TV Aerials: SDS Aerials
🧰 Vehicle Repairs: C J Motors Stockport