For 160 minutes this season, Macclesfield had been more than a match for illustrious Premier League opponents in the FA Cup. Ultimately it took an unfortunate own goal from Sam Heathcote, a PE teacher when not playing as a part-timer in the sixth tier, to put Brentford into the fifth round.
As cruel as it felt on Heathcote and Macclesfield, they can once again be proud of their performance. Crystal Palace could not break down the Cheshire team in the previous round and for 70 minutes Brentford had also struggled for a route to goal. The non-league side were even able to rouse themselves to push for a late equaliser, rather than cave in to Keith Andrews’s men.
Brentford were actually playing in a lower division than the Silkmen as recently in 1999, in the latter’s previous iteration as Macclesfield Town, but the Bees’ climb up the EFL in the 21st century to sit in a lofty seventh place in the Premier League meant John Rooney and his charges were under no illusions about the size of this task.
Rooney had spent much of the preamble insisting his players had kept their feet on the ground after the historic win over Crystal Palace, the biggest upset – by most metrics – in FA Cup history. The prospect of a lucrative trip to the London Stadium in the fifth round further upped the ante for Macclesfield – not that they needed extra motivation – and the home fans gleefully chanted “West Ham away” after the draw was revealed before kick-off.
