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First County Visit:	Tuesday 24th March 1992
Competition:	Barclays League Division 3 – (Tier 3)
Result:	Chester City 3 – 2 Stockport County
Attendance:	3,747
Away Trip:	58
Away Day:	230
County Line-up	1 Neil Edwards; 2 Andy Thorpe; 3 Jim Carstairs; 4 David Frain; 5 Tony Barras; 6 Alan Finley; 7 Jim Gannon; 8 Peter Ward; 9 Paul Wheeler (12 Chris Beaumont); 10 Lee Todd (14 Bill Williams); 11 Andy Preece
Scorers:	Jim Gannon; Andy Preece
Manager:	Danny Bergara
County Visits:	10

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A BOXING DAY NIGHTMARE

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Over the years there’s been a handful of grounds where I have seen County face more than one team.  The Victoria Ground, (Hartlepool and Gateshead); Aggborough, (Kidderminster and Worcester); the Kingfield Stadium, (Woking and Hayes); Nene Park, (Rushden and Kettering); Twerton Park, (Bristol Rovers and Bath) and Whaddon Road, (Cheltenham and Gloucester).  There’s also been a few where I have seen us play a team which has fallen on hard times and come back as a phoenix club, (Bucks Head; The Shay; Deva Stadium).  I’ve seen us play 4 teams at the ‘old’ Wembley, but the Moss Rose is unique.  Three different clubs have provided the opposition. 

Macclesfield naturally; but before that there was Chester City when they were in that limbo state between leaving Sealand Road and opening the Deva.  But the third opposition saw us play there, ostensibly as a home game.  The ravages of Sale Sharks on the EP playing surface had rendered it completely unfit for football, albeit that may games did go ahead on what was clearly a disgrace of a surface,  But the FA Cup 2^nd round tie against Torquay in late 1979 simply could not go ahead, despite a couple of attempts.  And there’s a bit of background to this.

The tie was originally scheduled for Saturday 28^th November.  The pitch had been in a right old state for weeks.  With ground maintenance duties falling to our landlords, Sale Sharks, after the sell out by Brendan Elwood the answer to the churning up by the egg chasers was to apply a bit of rolling and then chuck on copious amounts of sand.  That was the extent of it.  It had left the surface bereft of any meaningful grass.  When arriving for games it looked like a nicely rolled beach. 

After 90 minutes of football it was more akin to the Grimpen Mire, beloved of Sherlock Holmes.  And that was just football.  Rugby rendered it a complete morass.  And the condition was so bad that the night before the scheduled Torquay game there was a Guinness Premiership match between Sale and Wasps.  Only there wasn’t!!  Wasps refused to play. (The photo below shows the state of the pitch just prior to Wasps unilateral decision. Sale obviously thought otherwise as the crowded Main Stand testifies!!). It was reported in the Guardian the following day that Wasps rugby director Tony Hanks had said, “We just don’t believe that this surface is fit to play a professional game of rugby”,

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The whole use of EP for rugby, from the take-over by Cheshire Sports onwards, was a complete and utter fiasco and will be looked back on as the catalyst for the fall into non-league

Well, it’s a fair bet that if you can’t play rugby then there’s no chance for football.  The decision was made to play the home game at the Moss Rose some 11 days later.  And a true debacle unfolded.

It ended up in a 4-0 defeat, with the handful of Torquay fans who had made the hike up from the south-west not believing their luck.  We were appalling that season, but still a division higher than the Gulls.  We might have been bottom, but Torquay stood 21^st in League 2, having won only 4 league games all season. Keeper Owain fon Williams had a ‘mare.  We were 3 down inside the half hour.  Shameful.  Mark reached a state of apoplexy as the 4^th went in and chasing up and down in front of the stand he gave full back Adam Griffin a right mouthful.  The response was the time honoured “V” sign.  What a truly dreadful night.

But it was far from the worst experience at the Moss Rose.  That came on Boxing Day 2005.  Chris Turner was the manager then and it had been a desperate start to the season.  We came into the game with but two wins, (over Grimsby and Northampton), in 22 league games.  We were rock bottom of League 2, (Tier 4), and had scored but a single goal in the previous 4 games.  Macclesfield weren’t doing much better.  They were 5 points better off, true, but surely there was the chance of getting something out of the game.  Things got off to a bad start as Tes Bramble got his marching orders for a foul on Danny Swailes, (who later featured for the Hatters in 2010).  We kept Macc out until just before half-time, when two goals in a couple of minutes, (one from ‘The Beast’, Jon Parkin, who was to prove a thorn in our sides many times in later years). 

Jeff, Mark and I had stationed ourselves in the McAlpine Stand, under which is a tea bar.  Retreating there for some refreshment, and if truth’s know some warmth as well, we found County legend Jim Gannon holding court.  He had last appeared in a County shirt in a 2-2 draw with City at EP in March 2000.  He had left the action after being injured.  After nearly 480 appearances in a County shirt his Hatters career was over.  (Bizarrely that game also saw the last County appearance of Kevin Francis – two players who had been fundamental to the success in the 1990’s bowing out on the same night). 

Gannon, (who had just finished his first spell in management at Dundalk), was deep in conversation with a group of County fans, and given what was happening on the field, the chat turned to him.  Turner’s time in the job was evidently coming to an end, and he was asked whether he would be taking over.  He smiled, making some non-committal statement that whatever happened then something had to be done.  We went back out for the second half.  It was beyond parody, as Macc ran in another 4.  John  Miles scored one of those.  He pitched up at EP in Hamman’s brief spell and was undoubtedly one of the most bone idle; indolent players who it has been my misfortune to see turn out for County.  I have little doubt that when I get round to writing about Blundell Park, Grimsby that he could feature in the comments relating to Gannon’s “social loafers” observation.

The sorry affair can be seen by clinking on the link in the table at the bottom of this post.

Within 72 hours Turner had gone, and Gannon was installed as manager, but on a caretaker basis.  Some would argue that the afternoon at the Moss Rose was yet another pivotal moment, and for what it’s worth I’m one of them.  It was a truly dispiriting moment.  A team that we used to face in reserve competition and who were as poor as us in terms of league form had delivered a humiliating lesson in the scale of our descent.  Six years previously at this point in the year we had been 6^th in the Championship.

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My first County visit to the Moss Rose wasn’t to watch the Silkmen, but rather Chester City.  They spent a season there between leaving Sealand Road and moving to the Deva Stadium.  The ground, (or at least two sides of it) was different then than now.  I’d been a regular visitor to the Moss Rose over the years prior to that when in search of a game. 

I’d seen many of the Tameside non-league clubs play there, and remember vividly going there on New Years Eve 1988.  Boston beat them 1-0, but my memory comes not from the game but the news on my arrival back at home that my Grandma had passed away. With no mobile phones in those days I couldn’t be contacted during the afternoon so I was confronted with the sad news when I came back through the front door.  She had been in hospital for a number of weeks, and the outlook had never been good, but it was still a shock.  1988 wasn’t a good year – my Dad had died a few months earlier.

Back in March 1992, (a game which had been postponed in February), when we played Chester, the Main Stand, on London Road, was as it is today.  I stood on the terracing in front of it.  To the left, the Star Lane End, was an open terrace with similar arrangements at the far end of the pitch, (Moss Lane).  On the far side was a covered terrace.  On my frequent previous visits I had always found it pretty unsatisfactory.  There was precious little slope and standing anywhere near the rear provided a poor view, having to stand on tip toe to see over those in front, which wasn’t helped by a series of stanchions which broke up the view. 

The game itself was a disappointment.  We stood 2^nd going into the game, 6 points behind Stoke with a game in hand.  A win would have closed the gap and also put daylight between us and West Brom and Brentford, who stood 3^rd and 4^th respectively.  Chester were struggling to keep their heads above water down near the relegation zone. We went down 3-2, but eventually comfort could be taken that it was only 1 of 2 losses in a sequence of 10 games, the other 8 of which were all won.  We did of course reach the play-off final, which ended in tears at the hands of Peterborough.  Our next meeting with Chester would be the first game at their new home the Deva Stadium, some 5 months later.

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Moss Rose was of course then a non-league ground, with Macc not joining the league ranks until 1997.  It was all a bit bizarre, We had played Chester there in a league game sanctioned by the football authorities.  Three years later Macc won the Conference, but were stopped from taking their rightful place in the League because the ground “did not meet requirements”.  Exeter, the bottom club in the league, were the beneficiaries, retaining their place at the Silkmen’s expense.

As I write, (on April 29^th 2020), the Conference season has finished early due to the Coronavirus epidemic.  Whether there will be promotion or relegation, based on the records of teams at the point of the closedown, is still very much up in the air.  Barrow stand top of the table, and most observers indicate that they should be promoted.  I agree, from a playing perspective.  But I wonder about Holker Street – whether that will pass the suitability test.  There’ll be plenty more on that ground, (Away Trip 134), but compared to the non-league teams, (excluding previous league clubs), that have been promoted in recent years I do wonder.  Facilities at both Salford and Forest Green, (despite my own negative feelings about both of those clubs, more of which when we address Moor Lane and the New Lawn), are infinitely superior.  It’ll be interesting to see how it plays out.

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An unusual lay-out, with seating in front and a small area of terracing at the rear. I’d seen in previously at Ninian Park in the Grangethorpe End

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So a trip to the Moss Rose to play the landlords looked unlikely.  But it wasn’t the case.  We were drawn there in an FA Cup game only 8 or so months after the Chester fixture.  There were 5.700 on that day, which tested the capacity.  I stood in the same place as I had when we played Chester, (in front of the Main Stand).  It was a singularly better outcome.  A 2-0 win, with goals from Andy Preece and Bill Williams saw us through to a 3^rd round tie at the Baseball Ground. In the table below there’s a link to highlights from the game at the Moss Rose.  The video gives a clear idea of how the ground looked before the improvements were undertaken.  The massed ranks of County fans on the Star Lane End, show what a traditional football terrace was like before the sanitisation of football stadia. 

I liked Moss Rose, and even after the new stand was built, (see the comparison below), and that strange covering at the Star Lane End, (seating at the front, standing at the back, all in the space of a dozen steps), was put in place I enjoyed going.  After the Cup game I had to wait another 13 years for a County visit.  That turned out to be the season changing 6-0 loss described above.  Our last game there was at the dog-end of the 2012/13 season as we fought what was a losing battle to avoid the drop into regional football.  It drew a decent crowd of just over 4,000.  Jon Macken, who had purveyed his skills on a far higher stage, scored the only goal of his brief County career. 

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The accommodation on the Moss Lane side of the ground

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Before ….. and after

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Since then, despite being promoted back to the League, Macclesfield seems to have been mired in all sorts of financial problems.  There have been regular stories of players not being paid, and on occasion refusing to play.  Only a matter of months ago they turned out in an FA Cup game, (against Kingstonian), with six youth team players and five loanees after the first team went on strike.  It’s a dreadful reflection on how things have been run.  But Macc are far from the only sinners in this context.  In my account of trips to Brisbane Road, (Away Trip 38), I fulminated about “fit and proper persons”.  The same text could have been inserted in this piece, as indeed in many others.

April 2020

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VISITS

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Day	Date	Competition	Tier / Round	Opponents	Res	F	A	Crowd	Away Day
Tues	24/03/92	Barclays League Division 3	Tier 3	Chester City	L	2	3	3,747	230
Sat	05/12/92 (Highlights)	FA Cup	Round 2	Macclesfield Town	W	2	0	5,700	248
Mon	26/12/05 (Highlights)	Coca-Cola Football League – League 2	Tier 4	Macclesfield Town	L	0	6	4,553	545
Tues	17/10/06	LDV Vans Trophy	Northern Round 1	Macclesfield Town	W	1	0	1,792	562
Sat	14/04/07 (Highlights)	Coca-Cola Football League – League 2	Tier 4	Macclesfield Town	L	0	2	4,451	579
Tues	09/10/07	Johnstones Paints Trophy	Northern Round 2	Macclesfield Town	W	1	0	2,248	586
Sat	15/12/07 (Highlights)	Coca-Cola Football League – League 2	Tier 4	Macclesfield Town	W	2	0	3,585	592
Tues	15/12/09	FA Cup	Round 2	Torquay United	L	0	4	1,690	645
Sat	04/09/10	npower Football League – League 2	Tier 4	Macclesfield Town	W	2	0	3,683	657
Sat	30/03/13 (Highlights)	Blue Square Bet Premier	Tier 5	Macclesfield Town	D	1	1	4,027	723

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ON MY JOURNEY WITH COUNTY AROUND 180 GROUNDS

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Previously – GAY MEADOW Next stop – THE OLD WEMBLEY STADIUM