Stockport County, recently relegated from the league into non-league have signed Danny Rowe on loan from Fleetwood Town, a team from the other end of the Conference National to themselves.
"We're near the bottom of the league," said manager Jim "The Cannon" Gannon. "Fleetwood are near the top. We figure if we use one of their players, then we can move up the league, even if they move down it. It's simple. For them to be near the top, they must have players that got them there. If we have those players, we'll get near the top too. This is what we in the trade call 'management'."
The only downside to this loan, is that Stockport already have a player called Danny Rowe.
"Yeah, Danny's been with us a while now," said Jim "Egg and Gammon" Gannon. "It's a little unusual to have two players with the same name right down to their first name. And their surname. It's caused a bit of a headache with the shirt names, I can tell you."
Traditionally, only the surname is put on the back of a shirt. Unless you're Brazilian, in which case you are allowed to put on any name that comes to mind, such as the nickname that your nanny gave you. When two players share a surname, then their initial is put on too. This has caused problems especially when Tom and Simon Watt both played for Bristol City.
"We couldn't put D Rowe on both shirts," said Jim "Hands On" Gannon. "That just wouldn't work either."
Various alternatives have been suggested.
"We thought of Rowe 1 and Rowe 2," said Jim "Something to Land On" Gannon. "But that would end in tiers."
As Fleetwood are known as the Cod Heads, also considered was adding the word "Cod" to the start of his name, but this looked like an fishy ingredient. Whilst neither wanted "Danny" on the back, so they had to stand together for their full name.
"In the end," said Jim "Non nag" Gannon, "somebody thought to ask if they had middle name."
The pair did have middle names. Both were a little reticent to reveal their middle names, which begin with L and M respectively.
"Who knew that Danny's middle name was Lisa?" asked one fan, who was too embarrassed at being discovered to be a Stockport fan to be named.
It took some digging, with Danny Rowe too ashamed to tell, but the M stands for Martin.
