Macclesfield's record FA Cupset and why it was such a phenomenal result
No team in the history of the FA Cup since 1871 has beaten a top-division opponent when being as "minor" in the football pyramid as 117 places below the other team.
The first part of today’s “multi-story” piece is a re-tooled version of the latest newsletter I’ve written for the listeners of The Rest Is Football podcast. That focussed on the third round of the FA Cup, not least the record-breaking achievement of sixth-tier Macclesfield eliminating the Cup holders, Crystal Palace of the Premier League.
This article delves deeper into the context of that victory and how it compares, statistically, to some other famous FA Cup giant-killings. Find out below where your club’s biggest FA Cup shock rates, if you support a relative minnow that shocked a team from the top divisions in a memorable cupset.
I was chatting to a Bournemouth-supporting friend earlier this week, for example, and he was at the Cherries’ third-round FA Cup match against Manchester United in January 1984. Bournemouth were a third-tier team, then managed by a 36-year-old rookie boss, a bloke called Harry Redknapp.
Top-flight United, managed by Ron Atkinson, had a starting XI including Arnold Muhren, Bryan Robson, Ray Wilkins, Frank Stapleton and Norman Whiteside.
Bournemouth had a starting XI with no players you’d recognise, although there was a Robbie Savage in that team. (Not that one).
Anyway, Bournemouth won 2-0, which would have been a big deal even if United hadn’t been the FA Cup holders at the time. My friend was at that match and said he thought that giant-killing had perhaps never got the recognition it deserved. Well it’s on my new list, as you’ll see shortly.
How Macclesfield entered the record books
Macclesfield won 2-1 last weekend thanks to a first half header from Paul Dawson, bandaged below, alongside Isaac Buckley-Ricketts, who scored the second.
Palace currently sit 13th in the PL, with Macclesfield 117 places below them in the National League North, with 117 places being the biggest gap between any winner and loser in FA Cup history in any match after the “big” clubs from the top divisions have entered the competition at the third round.
This was just the third time that a non-league side had knocked out Premier League opposition since the formation of the PL in 1992-93, with Macclesfield following in the footsteps of Luton, who eliminated PL Norwich City in the fourth round in 2012-13, and Lincoln, who beat PL Burnley in the fifth round in 2016-17.
By quirk of fate Macclesfield became the first non-league team to eliminate the FA Cup holders since … Crystal Palace knocked out Wolves in the 1908-09 first round.
We will shortly move on to a list of the 14 biggest shocks in FA Cup history in which big clubs from the top divisions have been involved, but last Saturday’s win came loaded with emotional extras.
One of Macclesfield’s strikers, Ethan McLeod, 21, died in a car accident on the M1 in December on the way back from a game, and is still very much front and centre of his team-mates’ and fans’ thoughts as they look to build on the weekend’s historic win. Macclesfield will host Brentford in the fourth round.
The history-makers are managed by John Rooney, 35, the younger brother of former Manchester United and England striker, Wayne.
John started his own playing career with Macclesfield in 2008, and played for New York Red Bulls and Orlando City in MLS, as well as Chester, Wrexham Stockport and Oldham among others. He ended his playing career back at Macclesfield last July before being appointed as Robbie Savage’s successor as Macclesfield manager. He and Wayne shared emotional moments after the Palace win.
A weekend of a near-record FA Cup goal tally
There were 129 goals scored in the third round of this year’s FA Cup, which is more than any 3R total in the history of FA Cup in which 32 games have been played, aside from the 1926-27 season, where there were 138 third-round goals.
Manchester City scored more than their fair share of the third-round total by thrashing League One Exeter out of sight, 10-1, in a match in which Erling Haaland failed to score and Antoine Semenyo scored on his debut after his £64m move from Bournemouth. Semenyo became the first City player to both score a goal and provide an assist on his City debut since Sergio Agüero in August 2011.
Other big scoring third-round matches include Wolves scoring six against Shrewsbury, while Chelsea, Burnley, Bristol City, Burton Albion and Norwich all scored five as they progressed to the fourth round.
City’s 10 goals against Exeter seems a lot - and it is! But 35 teams have scored 11 or more goals in a single FA Cup match in the tournament’s history. The biggest ever number of goals in one game was Preston 26 Hyde 0 in 1887, and the 20 games with the highest number of goals for one team were all before 1900. Tottenham 13 Crewe 2 in 1960 was the first FA Cup game of the 20th century with one team scoring 13 goals in a match.
The rest of today’s piece, for paying subscribers, without whom this site would not exist, includes:
The list of biggest FA Cup upsets, detailing the divisions in which each team played, and the number of places separating them in the pyramid.
A second unrelated story, about the academies at clubs across the world that have produced the most number of players currently making a living at clubs in Europe’s “Big 5” elite divisions.
A third story, about how the Premier League is on course to see the all-time biggest average top-flight attendances ever in the English game.
A fourth story, about the cost that fans of each of the 48 nations competing at this summer’s World Cup will need to pay to attend each of their teams’ three group matches at the tournament, including tickets, transport and hotels.
