Our journey around the villages, towns, cities and regions that have rugby league running through their veins takes a trip to one the game’s pioneering venues.  

STOCKPORT and rugby league aren’t often mentioned in the same breath.

The town hasn’t seen a professional game since 1903, although there were failed attempts to form clubs 90, then 40 years ago.

But it nevertheless has a special place in the sport’s history as one of the ten places to stage a match in round one of the first-ever season, 1895-96.

What’s more, along with Batley’s Mount Pleasant (now of course known as the Fox’s Biscuits Stadium), Edgeley Park is one of only two of the grounds concerned to still exist (as home to Stockport County Football Club).

And while crowd counting methods were at that time maybe a little on the sketchy side, some sources suggest that at around 10,000, Stockport attracted the day’s highest attendance for their meeting with Brighouse Rangers.

Eight miles south of Manchester and the start of the River Mersey (through the confluence of the Goyt and Tame) Stockport initially thrived through the cultivation of hemp and manufacture of rope, then silk, then cotton and by the second half of the 19th century, also hats, with around 30 factories churning them out.

Stockport Rugby Club were formed in 1884 as part of the town’s thriving Sunday School, at that time said to be one of the largest of its kind in the world.

Playing at Shaw Heath in the south-east of the town, they took on the touring New Zealand Maori team in January 1889, attracting around 4,000 to see a hard-fought 3-3 draw, before which the visitors were taken on a trip to one of the previously-mentioned hat factories.

Soon after the rugby side moved in with Stockport Cricket Club at their nearby and relatively new ground at Cale Green.

However it was a short stay as in 1891, rugby took up residence at the new Edgeley Park, again not far away and built on land donated by a leading cotton bleaching business for sporting use.

It was from this venue four years later that Stockport were among the clubs who, wanting to pay players, famously broke away from English Rugby Union’s governing body and formed their own competition, the Northern Union.

However they were absent from the key meeting at Huddersfield’s George Hotel on Thursday, August 29, 1895, with their application for membership made by telephone – and accepted.

Stockport, who wore maroon shirts, were among four teams from the original county of Cheshire (with Runcorn, Warrington and Widnes) to feature alongside the eleven from Yorkshire and seven from Lancashire in that first season.

With fixtures having to be hurriedly arranged – it proved impossible to include Huddersfield and Oldham in the opening round – the 22-team competition began nine days later on Saturday, September 7.

Batley beat Hull FC at Mount Pleasant, Bradford (the original version) comfortably dispatched Wakefield Trinity at Park Avenue, Wigan were winners at Broughton Rangers’ Wheater’s Field base, Leeds came out on top at Leigh’s Mather Lane and Liversedge lost out to visitors Halifax at Hightown.

Runcorn defeated Widnes at Canal Street, St Helens got the better of Rochdale Hornets at Knowsley Road, Tyldesley were too good for Manningham at Well Street and Warrington edged out Hunslet at Wilderspool Road (a ground which was adjacent to the subsequent Wilderspool Stadium, used by Wire between 1898 and 2003).

And in front of that five-figure gate at Edgeley Park, Stockport went down 5-0 as Brighouse, who had a few months earlier won rugby union’s Yorkshire Cup, notched a try and a conversion.

With twelve wins, eight draws and 22 defeats from their 42 matches, Stockport finished 17th (Bradford side Manningham recovered from their setback at Tyldesley to become the inaugural champions).

And the following season, when the Northern Union was regionalised, they were fifth in the Lancashire Senior Competition, which turned out to be a highest-ever final position.

Edgeley Park was sometimes used by Cheshire for games in the County Championship, while in 1899-1900, Stockport reached the quarter-finals of the fourth running of the Challenge Cup, ousting Hunslet, Tyldesley and Radcliffe before a 3-0 home defeat by Widnes.

Meanwhile Stockport County, who also had their roots in the town’s Sunday School, having been in existence since 1883 (originally as Heaton Norris Rovers), entered the Football League in 1900.

Seeking a bigger ground than Green Lane, they moved to Edgeley Park in 1902, with the two clubs aiming to use the venue on alternate Saturdays and County agreeing to revert to their prior base in the case of a fixture clash.

In the event, that arrangement was for just one campaign, for having had financial issues for some years and finished nine points adrift of Morecambe at the bottom of the new 18-strong Second Division in 1902-03 (regional leagues having been dropped after six seasons), the rugby club folded.

County gained sole control, and after a hiccup in which they lost Football League status for 1904-05, started to invest in the ground, although there was a major setback in the mid 1930s, when the main stand was destroyed by fire.

Around the same time, the Rugby Football League sent representatives to meet a group who were considering forming a new club in Stockport.

While this was a period of attempted expansion for the game – two London teams, Acton & Willesden and Streatham & Mitcham joined in 1935 and Newcastle in 1936 – there was no further progress in Cheshire.

Amid another surge of new sides, including Fulham, Cardiff City and Carlisle, there was an application from a consortium for a Stockport team based at Edgeley Park to enter the Rugby Football League for 1986-87, but it failed to gain the necessary support from existing clubs.

The oval-ball was seen back on the pitch between 2003 and 2012, but it was rugby union in the shape of Sale Sharks, who then moved to the Salford Community Stadium.

County, who in 1950 had a record attendance of 27,833 for an FA Cup tie against Liverpool, dropped out of the Football League in 2011, but since returning in 2022, have enjoyed a resurgence, with plans to further develop the now all-seater ground and expand capacity from 10,850 to around 18,000. 

First published in Rugby League World magazine, Issue 515 (December 2025)