Don't mention Stockport

The Metropolitan Borough of Stockport by area size is one of the largest in the United Kingdom. The same goes for its area by Postcode size. As a town with an urban population of around 136,000 people it is ranked 18^th in a list of the country’s largest towns. Why then I ask, do broadcasters, the media at large including bizarrely our local press and TV go out of their way to not say or print the word “Stockport”? If you doubt me then here are a few prime examples:

Stockport by way of its village of Woodford produced aircraft such as Britain’s cold war nuclear deterrent the Vulcan, the Lancaster, the Nimrod, Hawker Siddeley 748, BAE ATP, Avro 146/RJ jets and more. Up until the mid to late 90’s the air show until it was no longer held regularly attracted audiences of well in excess of 100,000 people. Probably the largest gathering of people at a single event within Greater Manchester – and there lies the problem, more of which I shall comment later. If you were to Google ‘Woodford Aerodrome” you find out that Woodford is in Greater Manchester and not only that Wikapedia will tell you that it is 6 miles from Macclesfield. In fact the only way you could link Woodford with Stockport is the councils own link talking about the housing scheme to replace the aerodrome.

Lyme Park has recently been in the spotlight not least because of a recent addition of a Colin Firth upper torso commemorating his famous Mr Darcy role. Both local BBC and Granada informed us of this fact and also informed us that Lyme Park is in Cheshire, again no mention of Stockport.  This to me is akin to informing foreign visitors to make for Middlesex to view Buckingham Palace ( I know Middlesex is technically defunct but you get my drift)

BBC’s Gardeners World ran a piece about a wonderful garden that you can see just before you land at Manchester Airport when you “ fly over Bredbury in Greater Manchester”  I would add that the discerning flyer when landing on runway 23 right also flies over Edgeley Park, yeah the Edgeley Park in STOCKPORT !!

Dear Old Fred Perry recently lost his British ‘stranglehold’ on the men’s Wimbledon Tennis championship to Andy Murray, again not a mention of Stockport did I hear. I could go on and on.

Clearly when the boundary changes of the early 70’s were made and the Greater London and Manchester boroughs were drawn up many towns effectively lost a lot of their autonomy. Stockport seems to have faired poorly but why. Surely the council employ somebody to publicise the town?  There must be something more to publicise aside from the rather tired but never the less impressive statistic that the viaduct is Western Europe’s largest brick built structure – although Germany is claiming they have a larger one.

Finally I can conclude that it is our football club that has probably done more than most to promote the name of the town. Even at the level we compete at now, although I note that most Sunday papers have failed to include our friendly game results whilst including the results from clubs arguably smaller than ours!

I am sure Phil and John will continue to do sterling work in promoting and communicating about the club but what are the council doing and what’s the agenda with the local media ?. After all, most of their beloved premier league stars will be sporting an SK postcode!!  

Adrian Caville