![\"Macclesfield's](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/0023b895-614.jpg\"\/)
<\/p>\nNon-league Macclesfield produced one of the FA Cup’s most startling upsets when they beat holders Crystal Palace 2\u20131 in a third\u2011round thriller, knocking Oliver Glasner’s team out of the competition and sending the Moss Rose crowd into raptures.<\/p>\n
Captain Paul Dawson and Isaac Buckley-Ricketts struck in each half as the home side – coached by Wayne Rooney’s younger brother John – stunned Premier League side Palace, a team 117 places above them in England’s football pyramid.<\/p>\n
Dawson (below) rose to head home a lovely curled free kick from Luke Duffy in the 43rd minute.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Buckley-Ricketts doubled their lead in the 60th minute when he twisted his body to wrong-foot Palace goalkeeper Walter Benitez in front of a delirious crowd at Moss Rose, the site of a children’s under-nines practice earlier in the day.<\/p>\n
Palace’s Yeremy Pino scored with a stunning free-kick in the 90th minute to make for some nervy added-time minutes.<\/p>\n
Palace boss Glasner had made six changes to his team from Wednesday’s scoreless draw with Aston Villa.<\/p>\n
He sent on reinforcements in Will Hughes, Tyrick Mitchell and Brennan Johnson to start the second half.<\/p>\n
The changes made little difference as the visitors, who are 13th in England’s top flight, looked rattled through much of the second half.<\/p>\n
Macclesfield are the first non-league team to eliminate the FA Cup holders since Crystal Palace knocked out Wolverhampton Wanderers in the 1908-09 first round.<\/p>\n
Arsenal were the last holders to go out in the third round, in 2018.<\/p>\n
The victory was the latest chapter in a remarkable rise for Macclesfield, who were expelled from the National League five years ago, with debts totalling more than \u00a3500,000.<\/p>\n
The club was purchased a month later by local businessman Robert Smethurst. Macclesfield entered the ninth tier in 2021-22, winning three promotions in four seasons since then.<\/p>\n
They were also playing with heavy hearts after 21-year-old forward Ethan McLeod died in a car accident while travelling back from an away match last month.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Non-league Macclesfield produced one of the FA Cup’s most startling upsets when they beat holders Crystal Palace 2\u20131…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":238026,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":{"0":"post-238025","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-ie","9":"tag-ireland","10":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238025","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=238025"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238025\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/238026"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=238025"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=238025"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=238025"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}