Stockport County Lost a Play-Off Semi-Final After Finishing 3rd in League One

In the 2024-25 season covered by these accounts, Stockport County finished 3rd in League One, missing out on automatic promotion by a narrow margin before losing in the play-off semi-finals to London rivals-in-waiting Leyton Orient, ending a remarkable rise up the divisions one step short of the Championship.

The accounts don't disclose a turnover figure for the period, but a pre-tax loss of around £12m shows significant investment in a squad built to compete for automatic promotion, one of the larger deficits of any club challenging near the top of League One that season.

Net assets remain close to break-even at around £0.1m, a position the club has protected carefully even while backing a squad good enough to finish above Birmingham City's chasing pack and just below the top two.

Staff costs aren't separately disclosed in these filings, but the scale of the loss suggests County spent close to the limit of what their revenue base could sustain in pursuit of a first Championship season in decades.

Stockport's rise from National League football to the brink of the Championship in the space of a few seasons is one of the most remarkable in recent memory. This was the first year that rise didn't quite deliver the next step up.