Stockport County star John Rooney named as National League Player of the Season

Stockport County attacking midfielder John Rooney has claimed the National League Player of the Season award for the second consecutive season.

Rooney, 30, was part of Barrow’s title-winning side during the 2019/20 season and he will hope to add another promotion to his list of achievements before the end of the month.

The Hatters still will be in Simon Rusk’s squad this weekend as they prepare to host Hartlepool United in the National League play-offs.

Rooney will go into that crucial clash boosted by seeing off the likes of Bromley’s Michael Cheek and Connor Lemonheigh-Evans of Torquay United to claim the Player of the Season award.

He said: “It’s a real honour for me to win this award for the second year running, even more so to do it in my first year here at County, and I’d like to thank everybody that voted for me.

“It’s obviously been a really strange year with no supporters in, but when we look back, I think I can be happy with a lot of my performances this year, and more importantly I think we can be proud of how far we’ve come as a team so far this season.

“I’ve really enjoyed my time here so far, and luckily I’ve got a lot of great teammates around me that have helped us to be successful and helped me show what I can do.

“Individual awards are nice of course, but now we’re all just focussed on the next two games and ending the season with promotion, which is what we all set out to do at the start of the year. Hopefully there’s a few more special moment and goals to come and we can get over the finishing line.”