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'I’m starting next season': Sol Campbell promises to continue his impressive Macclesfield revival
Sol Campbell has promised to continue the recovery job he has started at Macclesfield Town, who avoided relegation from League Two on the final day of the season.
However, after he had watched his side’s 1-1 draw with Cambridge United, it was obvious that six months at the club had stretched his patience.
The former England defender has made a success of his first move into management, taking on a team who were seven points from a position of safety at the foot of League Two, and leading them to safety amid a backdrop of financial chaos.
Macclesfield’s players have been paid late four times this season, including in each of the past three months, and the club narrowly avoided a winding-up order at the High Court only six weeks ago over unpaid bills.
They have no training ground, having to hire a school field almost 20 miles away in Northwich, and minimal backroom staff.
Even as they celebrated the point that kept them up, Macclesfield’s fans still found time to express their anger at the financial disarray being endured under majority shareholder Amar Alkadhi and chairman Mark Blower. ‘We want our club back,’ they chanted towards the Moss Rose directors’ box.
Campbell, who signed an 18-month contract when he was appointed last November, is more diplomatic but just as pointed; he will not stand for another season of off-field turbulence.
He said: “Who wants to be in this scenario? We’ll be getting grey hairs all day long. No one wants to be in this scenario.
“But you’ve got to start right. They didn’t do a proper pre-season, things like that. It’s been all over the place. Those things have got to be addressed before we start again.
“I’m starting next season. And I hope I can see everything is done properly. That’s key really, to make sure we start on a good foot, because that wasn’t the case this season.
“We can’t afford to have a scenario where we have no training ground and no pre-season. That’s a recipe for disaster.”
In the end, it all worked out on the pitch for Macclesfield, although they were 25 minutes from relegation on Saturday afternoon, as they trailed to a deflected goal from their former midfielder Paul Lewis, and rivals Notts County led at Swindon.
There was a nasty incident early in the second half when a bottle thrown from the Star Lane End smashed against the crossbar, leaving shards of glass in Cambridge goalkeeper Dimitar Mitov’s penalty area. Play was held up for two-and-a-half minutes as staff cleared the debris, and a Football Association charge appears inevitable.
That was the low point of a day that ended happily for Macclesfield; Elliott Durrell’s calmly taken equaliser secured a point which, as it turned out, they did not need anyway, as Notts County lost 3-1.
Durrell, who only made his Football League debut at the age of 29 after years on the non-league scene and a spell at Jamie Vardy’s V9 Academy, has suffered with his team-mates this season over the late payment of wages. Team spirit does not pay the bills, but it has got him through some tough moments over the past few months.
“Listen, I’d love to be on the salary that Raheem Sterling is on, but we’re here,” Durrell said. “We love what we do. Yes, it pays our bills, it pays our mortgages, it pays for our children to have nice things. But we love it.”