When Sol Campbell was appointed Macclesfield Manager, it was to a triumphant fanfare of his own confident ego kicking in and the fact that Macclesfield, were the strongmen of League 2 in propping everyone else up, cut adrift and seemingly heading towards the National League … Fast!
However, under his guidance, Macclesfield have had something of a transformation, being turned into a very formidable, solid and hard to beat team, which slowly but surely has eaten away at the distance between themselves and 22nd place ( the safety place) to such an extent, that they successfully dragged Notts County and Yeovil, by way of their own good form and the latter,s poor runs into trouble.
A run so good, that they were unbeaten in 5 games, with 3 draws and 1 win, on the back of going into this weeks game against Exeter City, themselves going for promotion, while Exeter themselves had not been on the best run, and though occupying the play off places, their current form was the opposite of Macclesfield’s so an interesting match awaited, with both sides obviously wanting the best result for very different reasons.
It was against this backdrop that a tense edgy game was expected at Macclesfield and on early starters it was Exeter City who took the lead, on 27 minutes, only for Macclesfield to pull one back, 3 minutes later, a lead which lasted precisely 4 minutes, before Exeter took the lead again, only to be pegged back again, deep into first half injury time.
Half Time: Macclesfield 2~ 2 Exeter City
The second half was a tense affair and going into the last 10 minutes, it looked as if it was going end all square, when Macclesfield, with 5 minutes remaining, took the lead again and managed to hold onto it until the final whistle, to Win 3~2.
The Win Lifts Macclesfield out of the bottom 2 and makes for a very interesting final few games, because, 2 points now seperates the leagues oldest Club, Notts County, who are now bottom on 37 points, level with Yeovil who are above them, going into the final 5 games of the season.
Will Macclesfield survive?… On current form it would be hard to bet against them