{"id":516774,"date":"2026-03-03T21:32:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-03T21:32:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/516774\/"},"modified":"2026-03-03T21:32:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-03T21:32:07","slug":"macclesfield-fcs-ground-targeted-in-suspected-arson-attempt-macclesfield","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/516774\/","title":{"rendered":"Macclesfield FC\u2019s ground targeted in suspected arson attempt | Macclesfield"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Macclesfield FC have claimed that someone tried to burn down their stadium on Monday night, two months after the club pulled off <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/football\/2026\/jan\/10\/macclesfield-crystal-palace-fa-cup-match-report\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">the biggest upset in FA Cup history<\/a> by knocking out the holders, Crystal Palace, there.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">The \u201csuspected arson attempt\u201d on the Leasing.com Stadium took place overnight and there were no casualties, the club said. \u201cEmergency services have responded immediately and are on site tackling the blaze in the affected areas,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/football\/macclesfield\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" data-component=\"auto-linked-tag\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Macclesfield<\/a> said in a statement.<\/p>\n<p>A screengrab of the blaze at Macclesfield\u2019s ground.  Photograph: @silkmenarmy<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">The sixth-tier National League North club urged \u201canyone nearby to keep windows shut and not to approach the stadium\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Authorities are investigating the cause of the fire and the club said they were not commenting further for now. The stadium, which dates to 1891, has a capacity of 6,355 spectators.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Macclesfield, managed by John Rooney, younger brother of the former England and Manchester United striker Wayne Rooney, stunned Palace 2-1 on 11 January and created one of the most iconic moments in football\u2019s oldest knockout competition.<\/p>\n<p>Quick GuideHow do I sign up for sport breaking news alerts?Show<\/p>\n<p>Download the Guardian app from the iOS App Store on iPhone or the Google Play store on Android by searching for &#8216;The Guardian&#8217;.<\/p>\n<p>If you already have the Guardian app, make sure you\u2019re on the most recent version.<\/p>\n<p>In the Guardian app, tap the Profile settings button at the top right, then select Notifications.<\/p>\n<p>Turn on sport notifications.<\/p>\n<p>Thank you for your feedback.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">With 117 places separating Macclesfield and Palace when they played, it was the biggest upset in the FA Cup\u2019s 155-year history. Macclesfield were knocked out in the next round <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/football\/2026\/feb\/16\/macclesfield-brentford-fa-cup-fourth-round-match-report\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">by Brentford<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Macclesfield FC have claimed that someone tried to burn down their stadium on Monday night, two months after&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":516775,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,596,85],"class_list":["post-516774","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-football","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/516774","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=516774"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/516774\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/516775"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=516774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=516774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=516774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}