Robbie Savage has led Macclesfield to promotion from the Northern Premier League Premier Division in his first season as a manager – and he’s now attracting attention from other clubs
Robbie Savage had to wait until he was 50 to experience the joy of promotion as a player or manager. But as phoenix club Macclesfield became the first club, in the top eight divisions of English football’s pyramid, to climb through the skylight, the only way was up.
Savage would have sacked himself if his first season as a manager had not ended in triumph. “I would have lost everything,” he said. “My job, my self-esteem, my pride, I would have had to hand over my shareholding in the club, everything.
“When I became head coach last summer, I said it was promotion or bust. I could not have gone back to being director of football, judging other people or telling them where they were going wrong, if I had come up short as manager.
“Everyone would have been looking at me thinking, ‘He failed.’ I was all-in or all out. If you make a mess of your first job at this level, you won’t get another one. I wear my heart on my sleeve, and when I said that I would walk away from the club if we don’t win the league, I meant it.
“Some of the stuff that was written and said when I took on the job was unpleasant, to say the least. It was a horrible summer and I know there were people who wanted me to fail. But I have proved people wrong all my life since I was released by the biggest club in the world, Manchester United, as a youngster in the Class of 92.
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“They probably wondered what I was doing when. I brought on a centre-back when we were 1-0 down and moved the chess pieces around the board. Maybe I do know what I’m talking about after all.
“This is my proudest moment in football. I’ve captained four clubs in the Premier League, played in Wembley cup finals and won 39 caps for my country, but I had never won promotion before. To do it in my first season as a manager makes it even more special.
“I try to treat all the players like my sons – and now I want more. I expect us to be operating towards the top end of the National League North next season.”
Five years ago, the Silkmen’s loom had fallen silent. Macclesfield Town had ceased to exist and derelict Moss Rose was living up to its name – gathering moss. But when businessman Rob Smethurst relaunched it as Macclesfield FC, he invited a freelance pundit to be his business partner and director of football.
Savage saw potential where others only saw the carcass of a football club, and he was too intrigued to turn it down. Three promotions in four years – with a narrow play-off final defeat in the other – has vindicated his gamble.
Now Smethurst’s greatest challenge will be holding on to Savage. He admitted: “Maybe we’ll be lucky enough to keep Robbie for another year. He’s already getting clubs coming for him now, higher up in the league. But it’s only a matter of time before he proves himself and will no longer be here at Macclesfield. I’m aware of that.”
Most of the jealousy swirling around Macclesfield is based on their budget, but their financial clout is rooted in footfall at the turnstiles – 4,724 fans turned out for Saturday’s coronation of the Northern Premier League champions against Bamber Bridge.
And from goalkeeper Max Dearnley to 35-goal top scorer Danny Elliott, Savage has assembled his squad expertly. Midfielder Laurent Mendy has been there since the phoenix club’s rebirth, travelling up from London for a trial with no idea who he was signing for – or where the journey would take him.
Mendy, whose long-range equaliser was, in Savage’s words, “our Vincent Kompany moment” – a throwback to the spectacular goal which effectively sealed Manchester City ’s Premier League title in 2019 – admitted: “I didn’t know anything about Macclesfield and I didn’t know who Robbie Savage was. I had to look him up own the internet. I had to Google him.”
Captain Paul Dawson gave up his job working on the roads to concentrate on football. It was a good decision. He said: “I was a supervisor on the motorways – when you saw workmen digging up the road or putting the cones out, I was the one standing around doing nothing.
“Lots of people seem to have an opinion about Sav, but you don’t play at the levels he did for so long without knowing your way around a football pitch. Our results speak for themselves.”
And in a celebrated football dynasty, John Rooney’s 20 assists garnished the best-stocked conveyor belt since Bruce Forsyth’s Generation Game. In a season when his brother, Wayne, lost his job at Plymouth Argyle and his sister-in-law lost a one-horse race in the jungle, Rooney flew the flag consistently for the family.
He said: “I hope it’s not the last time I experience this, but it’s probably true what they say – in football, your last success is always the sweetest. To get over the line with six games to go is a great achievement.”