Often, after the euphoria of promotion, comes the depression and despair of the reality for several squad members. This week, Stockport County have released nine players following their play-off win over Rochdale to take them into League One.

Striker Adam Proudlockand long-term injury victim Rob Clare together with Chris Adamson, Adam Griffin, David Poole, Dan Ellis, Chris Coward, Craig Flowers and Amari-Morgan Smith, have all been shown the exit door from Edgeley Park.

These players, mainly on the fringes of things at Stockport, will have expected the worst, but the news will still be a devastating blow nonetheless. Maybe Proudlock, with 18 starts, Griffin with 19, and Poole with 13 during the promotion season, may have hoped for another contract, but the others, without a first-team start between them, will have known or at least expected that they would be looking for another club.

'It is a difficult time of year for footballers who, apart from the very top players at the very top clubs, tend to be on one-year contracts'


It is a difficult time of year for footballers who, apart from the very top players at the very top clubs, tend to be on one-year contracts. There will be hundreds of players in the same position as these nine at Stockport and many of them will not find another full-time contract at a new club.

They will have been celebrating the promotion and enjoying the association with success, but will have known that their own personal career may have been about to hit a potentially fatal stumbling block.

This is one of the anomalies in club football. Players work as hard as they possibly can to gain promotion for their clubs, but often know that their ability will not be quite enough to rise to the new level with their team.

How many of the West Brom, Stoke City and Hull City squad players will feature in next season’s Premier League? Will Dean Windass play a prominent role for Hull after he scored the spectacular goal that took them to the promised land?

As fans, we expect the players representing the teams we love to shed blood, sweat and tears for the cause of our club. If we feel they are not ‘dying for the cause’ we rightly get very upset indeed. The fact is, however, that the players know they might be playing themselves out of a job if they achieve what we want.

For my sins I am a Watford fan. We nearly went up this year and I was demanding 100 percent effort from the lads in the team. If they had managed to move up to the Premier League I would now have been hoping for several signings and that many of the players who had earned the promotion in the first place would move on. It would have been a case of ‘thanks and goodbye.’

We support the team and the club, not the individual players. We demand loyalty from the players but as fans, we are only ever loyal when we want to be.

Players often get a bad press and are usually booed by fans of their former clubs when they return. However, as fans, when it suits our club to do so, we are happy to see these same players sold, released or even finished.

It really isn’t a glamorous life in the lower leagues.