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Robbie Savage: Diary of a Football Manager: Added-time thrills, abuse, and the derby…

Robbie Savage

In association with Planet Sport Bet, Robbie is taking us behind the scenes each week at Macclesfield FC, the phoenix club rising from the ashes of Macclesfield Town, who went bust in 2020. 

Robbie has played one of the leading roles in the rebirth of a now-thriving football club, first as director of football, now as first-team manager as the Silkmen seek to climb their way from the ninth tier back to the Football League. 

In his latest diary entry, Robbie revels in an added-time winner in the face of yet more abuse, while busting a few Macclesfield myths and looking forward to a massive cup clash this weekend…


 

To the surprise of no one at Macclesfield, I’ll start with a thank you, to everyone who read last week’s diary entry. It prompted some debate over abuse in football and made some, like John Nicholson, ponder why the problem is getting worse.

Others, though, seemed to take my words as a challenge to turn up the spite. Like a few spectators at Workington on Saturday.

We went to Cumbria on the back of our first defeat of the Northern Premier League season, ending the longest unbeaten start in English football’s top seven tiers at 17 games. I expected a response from my team, not because the lads owed me one – they worked their nuts off for no reward at Mickleover, collectively running the second-highest distance of the season – but because that’s what good teams do when they suffer a set-back: they recover quickly.

And they did just that – in the most satisfying way possible.

Luke Duffy’s injury-time burst into the box to volley in Neil Kengni’s cross earned us a 1-0 victory and a 15-point lead at the top of the NPL table.

I’ll take the victories however they come, but still, after more than three decades in the game, last-minute winners hit different. The jubilation in the dressing room and the buzz on the bus for the three-hour trip home is proof of that.

The boys should all take great pride in their resilience – the XI and the subs. Or, as I now call them, the starters and the finishers.

Once again, we had to change things. We dominated for the most part, but I sensed early in the second half that our hosts were dropping deeper, their block getting lower and lower, and they succeeded in stifling our creativity. I’m sure a few eyebrows were raised when I took off our leading scorer at 0-0, but changing from 3-4-1-2 to a 4-2-3-1, and the players’ adaptability to switch seamlessly between systems, won us the game. Eventually.

The Workington players could not have put more into the game, and all credit to them. Regardless of the table, no one should entertain the notion that anyone in this league is lying down for us. The opposite is true.

I’ve touched before on how the games against the teams not considered to be our title rivals will decide our destiny come the end of the season. That’s because many of those sides are motivated more to stick it to us than any other given Saturday or Tuesday. We’ve come up against heroic levels of effort and desire that bely some opponents’ place in the bottom half of the league table.

No doubt one or two managers want to stick it to me too – and I understand that. Over a decade and 350 games as a Premier League player gives me the biggest profile of any coach in this division, but as a manager, I know I’m still a relative rookie. I’ve got a very good relationship with the vast majority of the managers I’ve shared a touchline with this season.

The Workington boss didn’t seem to enjoy that experience on Saturday. There is clearly no love lost between him and my club. I have no issue with that, and it highlights the competitiveness in this league. Plenty at Workington, from the boardroom to the groundsman, gave us a warm welcome, but I still believe that it’s good etiquette, as the home manager, to approach the away bench before the game to shake hands, which didn’t happen, so I went to theirs instead.

Robbie Savage’s Diary: Why I became a boss | Stress, shootouts and panenkas | Unacceptable abuse

That pre-match antipathy was evident throughout the game and I would be naïve to be surprised by it. We are the biggest club in the league, so we are there to be shot at. But if you are going to take aim, come with the facts, not myths.

Our players are not full-time professionals. They are teachers, plumbers, personal trainers, all desperate to go as far as they can in the game. Like every other squad in this league, we train twice a week: Tuesdays, when there’s no midweek game, and Thursdays. The only difference between us and some other clubs is that we train in a morning, rather than an evening. We took that decision now to make any transition to the National League a bit smoother further down the line.

The budget. Yes, it is almost certainly the biggest in the league. But we are not simply throwing around ‘millions and millions’. We have rebuilt the club to be self-sufficient. Our last four home league games have brought over 3,000 people through the gates. That’s more than the average gate of three League Two clubs, including Salford City up the road. We have worked very hard to maximise our sponsorship and revenues, all the while putting the club back at the heart of its community.

So yes, we have re-invested to give the team the best chance of success. No club knows better than us the importance of balancing the budget and we are now considerably more sustainable than many others at this level and above. And, as we have seen from the Champions League to the Northern Premier League, spending power is no guarantee of success. The only certainty is increased expectation and added motivation for every opponent.

That being true, we should all enjoy the triumphs because they are hard-earned. And, from the perspective of the coaching staff, when a tactical decision pays off, as it did on Saturday, it’s an incredible feeling.

The manner of victory was made all the more sweet by the abuse I copped during and after the game from a drunken minority. We had to abandon our post-match interviews at Borough Park because of it; that coming after another gentleman, clearly worse for wear, was allowed to bypass the barriers around the dug-out to scream abuse at my staff and I for far too long during the game before he was eventually moved on. It was unacceptable and I’ll continue to call it out when it crosses the line.

But that won’t detract from a fantastic display of resilience from my boys, and a wonderful occasion coming up…

Up next for Macc: Altrincham (A) FA Trophy third round
Saturday has been marked on the calendars of Macclesfield and Altrincham fans since the draw a few weeks ago…

Only a dozen miles separate the two sides in an old rivalry that goes back decades. This, though will be the first time we’ve met since Macclesfield FC was reformed in 2020.

More than 1,000 Macc fans with the hottest ticket in town will come with us to Alty. We asked for more tickets after quickly selling out our initial allocation inside 48 hours, but we’re certain of fantastic support on what I hope will be a celebration of both clubs off the pitch.

On it, it will be a huge test. Alty are one point off the National League play-off places and pushing for promotion to the Football League next season. They beat league-leaders York City 3-0 last week.

So, on paper, of course they are favourites. But our squad has been built for the National League and the lads are gasping to prove themselves against opposition of Alty’s calibre.

Robbie Savage is a brand ambassador for Planet Sport Bet

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