Many will feel Macclesfield fans deserved this moment after the difficulties they have endured in recent years.<\/p>\n
In 2020, Macclesfield Town ceased trading, consigning 146 years of football to the history books.<\/p>\n
Local businessman Robert Smethurst bought the club’s assets and, with former Wales midfielder Robbie Savage joining the board, they were reformed as a phoenix club.<\/p>\n
After joining the ninth-tier North West Counties Premier Division, three promotions in four seasons have lifted them to the sixth tier, where they are just a handful of points outside the play-off places despite being in the bottom half of the table.<\/p>\n
With Savage having left to join Forest Green Rovers, John Rooney took charge and he has fashioned a side who play with confidence and purpose, no matter who they face.<\/p>\n
That image of bandaged captain Dawson celebrating with the fans will likely become iconic, certainly among the club’s supporters when they reflect upon a day that will live long in the memory.<\/p>\n
“That shows what he is about,” Rooney said of Dawson. <\/p>\n
“He’ll take cuts, he’ll take bruises. He’s a warrior. He pops up with goals, as well. He is not the biggest profile, but he is fantastic in the air.”<\/p>\n
Rooney’s brother Wayne, covering the match for BBC Sport, was full of pride.<\/p>\n
“It’s incredible to see my younger brother achieve this,” he said. <\/p>\n
“He has not long been the manager. I am so proud of him.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Many will feel Macclesfield fans deserved this moment after the difficulties they have endured in recent years. In…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":238213,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-238212","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238212","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=238212"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238212\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/238213"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=238212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=238212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=238212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}