once again. However, he was disappointed to lose striker Tom Elliott, who rejected a contract offer to switch to Cambridge United. He also appointed long-time associate Alan Lord as his assistant. However County found themselves struggling in the league, and Gannon blamed the predicament on the board's decision to slash the wage budget in the summer. An angry Lord Snape told the press that "I'm getting pretty fed up of watching part-time teams beat Stockport County. Changes are going to be made unless things improve. Jim Gannon's pretty good at telling me how this club should be run. Well I'm going to tell him that I'm not impressed by the way the team is being run. If we lose a couple of our next games, we're in a relegation battle with a much bigger budget than most of the teams down there with us, which quite frankly is not good enough." Fourteen months into his second spell at Edgeley Park and with County sitting in the relegation zone, Gannon was relieved of his duties as Stockport manager on 16 January 2013 following the 3–1 home defeat by Mansfield Town. Northwich Victoria On 9 December 2013 it was announced that Gannon would become the new manager of Northern Premier League Division One North side Northwich Victoria. He replaced Lee Ashcroft, who resigned as manager and became director of football after picking up a ten match ban for sexist abuse. The "Vics" ended the 2013–14 season in ninth place. They reached the play-offs in the 2014–15 campaign, losing to Bamber Bridge at the semi-final stage. He took the club on a successful FA Cup run in the 2015–16 campaign, leaving them as the lowest rank team in the competition when they were knocked out by League Two side Northampton Town in the Second Round. Northwich had led 2–0 with eight minutes to play before a late comeback from Northampton. Third spell at Stockport County Gannon became manager of Stockport County, now in the National League North, for the third time in his career on 18 January 2016. Gannon started off well, taking the team to the Cheshire Senior Cup final and up to ninth in the table with a sequence of seven games unbeaten, including five victories, in the run up to Easter. In December he signed a new two-and-a-half-year contract. County finished eighth in the 2016–17 season, one point outside the