‘Legacy, community and family’: What next for Macclesfield Town fans after losing the club they love?
Having seen their club wound up earlier this month over debts exceeding £500,000, Will Magee looks at how Macclesfield supporters are making plans for a fresh start
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Your support makes all the difference.Though Macclesfield Town will go down as the first professional club to go into liquidation in the age of coronavirus, it wasn’t the shuddering financial impact of the pandemic which did for them.
“Macclesfield Town are not a victim of coronavirus,” says Jon Smart, a veteran member of the Silkmen Supporters’ Trust. “We’re a victim of incompetence and the shambolic running of the football club.”
After 12 adjournments, Macclesfield were finally wound up in the Insolvency and Companies Court earlier this month over debts exceeding £500,000. It had been a slow trudge to disaster for a club with a 146-year history and, for most fans, the news came as a crushing blow but not as a surprise.
In November last year, the players went on strike over unpaid wages and the club was forced to field a youth team against seventh-tier Kingstonian in the FA Cup, losing 4-0.
Macclesfield were hit with three points deductions by the English Football League (EFL) between December and June, either for non-payment of wages or failing to fulfil fixtures. In August, the EFL won an appeal to bring forward a suspended four-point sanction which saw Macclesfield relegated – having been docked 17 points in total over the course of the season – and rock-bottom Stevenage reprieved.
Many Macclesfield fans are angry at the EFL for what they see as railroading, even if they recognise the way the club was run meant that players suffered and points deductions were inevitable. There is also controversy over the fact that the EFL rejected the club’s request to be spared relegation on the basis that there was no guarantee that the National League would start within a reasonable timeframe.
The EFL responded that the National League was set to start on October 3 and that, in accordance with its regulations, they were satisfied that Macclesfield would have a competition to play in. That confidence now seems to have been founded more on luck than judgement, with the National League restart on very shaky ground until the government’s last-minute announcement of emergency funding.
Mainly, though, Macclesfield fans lay the blame for the club’s demise at the door of Amar Alkadhi. An Iraqi businessman, Alkadhi invested in the club in 2003 and, for the first few years of his tenure, he was generally considered a passable owner. His commitment waned and the club’s financial problems mounted, however, then spiralled out of control after they won promotion from the National League in 2018. “It all went wrong when we got back into the Football League,” says Smart, who saw little attempt to keep the club on a sound financial footing. “He acted like it wasn’t really his problem, when clearly it was his problem.”
For the moment, with Alkadhi failing to appeal the winding-up order, Macclesfield is effectively a town without a football club. Fans are determined that it won’t stay that way for long. There are already plans to form a phoenix club if nothing can be salvaged from the old entity, with AFC Macclesfield Town and Macclesfield Town 1874 among the suggested names.
The National League finally announced their intention to expel the club on Tuesday, four days before the scheduled start of the season, and any phoenix club would likely have to start in the North West Counties League Division One South, or Step 6 of the English league pyramid. Though National League membership could still technically be transferred from the old entity to its successor, it’s a complicated process and time is rapidly running out.
“There’s a lot of appetite for a Macclesfield Town Football Club, but with Mr Alkadhi gone,” says Smart. “We feel that, if we have a winning team, even in the lower echelons of non-league, we will be able to attract at least 1,000 people a game. The wages aren’t going to be high and we’d like to think we’d be able to get some promotions to start the ball rolling.”
In their latest update to fans, the Supporters’ Trust has reaffirmed its hope that Joe Sealey – a local businessman and son of the late Les Sealey, the former Luton Town and Manchester United goalkeeper – will be involved, after widely reported takeover talks last season came to nothing. Fans recognise that it’s a difficult time to invest in a football club, however, not least a lower-league club in the north west which struggles to resist the gravitational pull of Manchester United and Manchester City.
“With the uncertain times around fans back in stadiums it’s going to be a tough sell,” says Andrew Jackson, a season ticket holder for the last seven years. “I would support the phoenix club as will 99 per cent of our fanbase, I can assure you… we are adamant that Macclesfield Town is a viable business opportunity, but in these times we’re not going to see live football with good crowds until next year. Anyone looking to buy will have to wait to try to make money.”
One way or another, the Supporters’ Trust wants fan representation and a meaningful say in how things are run going forwards. They are also desperate to preserve the club’s historic home, Moss Rose, for use by Macclesfield Town’s successor club. “It’s not just the club, it’s the ground as well,” says Dean Holmes, a Trust member and long-serving former club employee. “At the moment, the closest to us where a possible phoenix club could play is Buxton or Congleton… whatever club is formed, it needs to play at the Moss. It’s there ready and waiting.”
The freehold on Moss Rose is owned by Cheshire East Council, who released a statement last week asserting a “strong preference… to see community football continue on the site.” Given everything they’ve been through over the last few months, fans are understandably wary. “We really want to keep Moss Rose as the centre of sport in Macclesfield,” says Holmes, who has started a crowdfunder to help with getting a phoenix club off the ground. “The way we need to do that is to make sure that the ground goes into the right hands.”
While Moss Rose rarely gets bumper attendances, there’s little doubt how much football means to Macclesfield. “It’s the biggest show in town on a Saturday or a Tuesday night and, to our fans, it’s huge,” says Holmes. “It’s the legacy. It’s a community club, it’s a family club, it’s our club. The last thing we want is to lose it, so anything we can do to keep that community spirit alive through football would be huge for our little town.”
Macclesfield fans may have been badly let down over the last few years, but they are still committed to handing down a local club to future generations. “It’s part of the framework of the town, it’s part of your DNA,” says Smart. “In all honesty, most Macclesfield supporters that I talk to would be happy if we’ve got a football club… even if we’re playing Cammell Laird away or Barnton away, we’ll have something to hang our hat on.”
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