Askey aiming high
‘ Terrific’ win for Silkmen comes despite ‘red tape’ blow for Macc manager
SATURDAY could hardly have gone any better for John Askey in spite of admin problems and a scratch squad.
Macclesfield’s victory over a Braintree side that finished just outside the play-offs last season was worth more than the three points to the manager.
Askey steered his cut-price squad to the club’s first opening-day win in a decade, and revealed his delight at the attitude his men showed from first to last whistle.
“Obviously things are very difficult but to get a result is a big boost for the players,” he said after Chris Holroyd scored the only goal of the game.
“If we’d have lost it’d be all doom and gloom, we’ve trained hard all week and all pre-season and if you then lose your first game it knocks the stuffing out of you. Getting a win is terrific, if you get a result you’ve got points on the board, so three points will give everybody at the football club a massive boost. After the hard work that people have put in hopefully that’s some reward.”
The Silkmen had got the campaign under way with a four-man bench, as David Gonzalez-Diaz (far left) and Malachi LavelleMoore (left) hadn’t been registered in time.
And while he admits his squad doesn’t have the depth he’d perhaps be happy with, Askey says they’ve laid down a marker for the town’s football fans and proved that they’re not ready to be the division’s whipping boys.
“It was so important that we got through preseason without picking up injuries and we’ve done it and that’s credit to the training and the players themselves,” he continued.
“They look after themselves and that’s important because we can’t really afford for anyone to get injured. It’ll happen but hopefully we can get some wins under our belt and have a breather.
“And we want more people to come and watch, hopefully today will have shown the people of Macc that we’re still competitive and if more people come then it gives us more of a chance this year.”