The Beat of the Ticking Clock and the Cacophony of Silence

A football match of allegedly epoch-making proportions sits with a coquettish smile over the horizon, a siren drawing in followers from all over the football world ready to be dashed on the jagged rocks of a shallow reef of disbelief. City fans the world over and apparently every single household in Stockport are unprepared for such Shakespearean drama in the full glare of prying eyes from every corner of the globe. They have been bought up on titanic grinding failure generating a gallows humour of epic proportions unmatched in sport. The disasters are legion, the on-field successes fleeting always heralding a new era but only delivering layer upon layer of crushing and suffocating silt. But a combination of a visionary investor, deep pockets and a manager of undoubted quality are fracking away at the historical substrates layer by layer. The tear-stained humour will endure as failure is an omnipotent presence for even the clubs operating at the highest strata, but silverware and success will also be woven into a new history of the club. Searingly happy days are but a tantalising step away.