Stockport County and Bolton Wanderers meet at Wembley in the League One play-off final on Saturday, with the winner going up to the Championship. It is a game that carries more than promotion for both clubs: for Stockport, it is a chance to end a wait of almost a quarter of a century for a return to the second tier, and for Bolton it is another shot at a place they have not occupied since 2019.
Dave Challinor said he could never have imagined being here when he was player-manager at Colwyn Bay and working in a regional division, let alone taking charge of a fifth visit to Wembley as a manager with a massive prize on the line. “If you'd have told me when I was player-manager at Colwyn Bay and managing in a regional division that I'd be in a play-off final and fifth visit to Wembley as a manager playing for a massive prize, absolutely never would I have thought that would be the case,” he said. “A whole host of people work so hard and go through so much to give ourselves the opportunity and we've got that opportunity. So we have to do everything now to make sure we do what we can to grab it.”
Challinor has built a reputation for getting teams over the line. Across a 16-season managerial career with Colwyn Bay, AFC Fylde, Hartlepool United and Stockport, he has finished outside the play-off places only once, in the Covid-interrupted 2019-20 season. He has won seven promotions and four league titles, including one promotion with Colwyn Bay, two with Fylde, one with Hartlepool and two with Stockport. That record has helped turn Stockport into a club with real belief, even if the league table now asks for one last performance.
Bolton come into the final with their own history pressing in from behind. They lost 2-0 to Stockport at the start of the season and drew 2-2 with them in April, and Steven Schumacher has still not beaten Challinor’s side since taking over in January 2025. George Johnston said the mood is different from the last time Bolton reached Wembley, when the feeling was that the job was already done. “It almost felt like [before] ‘right, that job's done, on to the next job’,” he said. “But this time it's definitely half-job done and we're fully focused on the next game and to really celebrate once we do get the win.”
That change in tone matters because Bolton have spent years trying to force their way back to the Championship after a collapse that nearly took the club out of business in 2019. Their 2019-20 campaign was disrupted by a protracted takeover process, but they returned to League One at the first attempt in 2020-21 and have kept pushing since, reaching the play-off semi-finals in 2022-23 and the final in 2023-24. Last season ended with a 2-0 defeat to Oxford at Wembley, and Ian Evatt later said that loss was down to fear. Schumacher replaced Evatt after that exit, and this final now asks whether Bolton can turn another big occasion into the finish they keep chasing.
For Stockport, the significance is simpler and heavier. The club last played in the second tier 24 years ago, and this is the kind of match Challinor has spent most of his career finding a way to win. For Bolton, it is another chance to put the pain of recent near-misses behind them. The final will decide which of those two stories becomes the one that lasts.
