Stockport Georgians club history

Stockport Georgians Football Club has its origins in St. George’s Church on Buxton Road in 1908. Games were played at a ground on Nangreave Road in Heaviley in the Stockport Sunday League.

All football was suspended during the First World War but resumed in 1919 and with the church having made some land available in trust for sporting activities. Minutes from a general meeting from October 1923 confirm that the club is to be called St. Georges (Stockport) Athletic Club. At that time, in addition to football, there were clubs for cricket, hockey, tennis and, for the younger people, scouts and girl guides. It is interesting to note from those minutes that “qualification for membership shall be as follows: attendance at Divine Worship held in St. George’s Church or membership of the Men’s Bible Class”.

The club played in the Stockport League in the 1920s with success in the 1926 and 1927 seasons when they were champions, having acquired the current site in February 1925 in a conveyance “of a plot of land containing eight acres and twenty seven perches situated at Woodsmoor, Stockport”. This area originally belonged to Mirrlees Bickerton. In 1931 the club was elected to Division Two of the Lancashire and Cheshire Amateur League.

Football was again suspended during the Second World War but by the early 1950s a third team was playing in the Lancashire and Cheshire Third Division, and in 1964 the club won Division wo of that league.

Between 1970 and 1973 due to deterioration of the playing surface Georgians played at Woodbank Park and Davenport School, and during this time the changing rooms at Woodsmoor were tragically burnt down. In 1973 new facilities were built alongside the prefabricated building of the Cricket Club with assistance of a Sports Council grant and the sale of some of the land.

In 1975 Georgians entered a team in the Stockport and

District Sunday Football League Division Four. but the side had folded by the mid-90s.

In 1987 the football club amalgamated with Adswood Amateurs which greatly increased the number of players available, raised the profile of the club and established an even stronger committee, which all amateur clubs need to stay alive. This merger was the foundation of the club as it is today.

As part of the merger Stockport Georgians took the place of Adswood Amateurs in the Manchester Football League and finished as champions in season 1987/88. They would go on to win the league in 2001/02 and again after a 13 year wait in 2015.

They had numerous other successes in cup competitions and a few near misses in the Cheshire Amateur Cup, which remained an elusive prize.

The push to become a North West counties club started after the 2015 title win when they lost several of that talented squad to clubs in the NWCFL. It was then that ambitions grew to grow the club and start the planning and preparation to improve all areas of the organisation.

Season 2021/22 ended with a third-place finish in the Manchester League and a narrow 2-1 defeat to Mersey Royal in the Cheshire Amateur Cup, but after years of hard work and endeavours on and off the pitch, they were delighted to be promoted to the North West Counties League.

Now they are looking forward to the challenge of becoming a semi-professional club, maintaining their standards, visiting new grounds and continuing to grow the club in honour of all those individuals who helped build Stockport Georgians Football Club over the last 114 years.