Tracey Neville, the former England netball coach who led the team to a historic Commonwealth Games gold medal in 2018, has embarked on a new challenge in a different sport. She is now the managing director of the women's football team at Stockport County, with a mission to transform the club from a volunteer-run community level outfit into a powerhouse for women's sport.
A New Beginning at Stockport County
Neville was appointed in February as Stockport builds towards a new era, starting next season with a summer rebrand and the first steps towards professionalism. She jokes that she is still getting used to football terminology but is no stranger to the game, coming from a family of footballers: her brothers Gary and Phil played for England, with Phil managing the Lionesses at the 2019 Women's World Cup.
Neville first connected with Stockport after speaking at a panel event last November. Impressed by her vision, the club offered her a role that quickly escalated from part-time to full-time. 'I know what women's sport is like. If you commit 20 days, you might as well commit 50, you might as well commit 365, you might as well commit it all!' she says.
Ambitions for the Future
Stockport currently sits seventh in the FA Women's National League Division One North, the fourth tier, but Neville has set an ambitious target: 'The aspiration for us is to get to WSL2 in three years' time.' She acknowledges the difficulty of climbing from tier four and three but emphasizes the importance of building a strong academy structure for girls' sport in Stockport.
'My job here is also to make Stockport the place where people want to play football and women want to play football,' Neville adds. 'In a few years' time, we're actually bringing through Stockfordians.'
Learning and Building
Neville has visited clubs down to tier five to observe best practices. She hopes Stockport will transition from training once or twice a week to fully professional status in a few years. 'You can't build a mountain in one day,' she says.
Her role involves more than coaching; she focuses on creating a performance environment. 'I don't need to know how to coach football, but I need to have a good understanding of the conversations that are going to happen around that,' she explains. 'I can put around them the best performance environments.'
A Personal Connection
Neville reflects on her own sporting journey, noting that if she had grown up now, she might have chosen football over netball. 'I used to go to every home and away game for Manchester United; it was the only exposure I ever had to sport.'
She sees her role at Stockport as part of a larger mission: 'To create careers, and a future for women's sport, I have a part to play in that. To give someone an opportunity or a future to aspire to is something that is really, really important to me.'
