Robbie would sacrifice everything to get to the National League North

Speaking to Planet Sport Bet recently, Robbie said: “People ask me whether I would prefer promotion or winning the FA Trophy at Wembley, and the answer is promotion.

“Yes, winning that trophy would be brilliant for the club and the fans, but fundamentally, promotion is what is most important. I would sacrifice everything now to get promoted.

“We’ve got some great wins in the FA Trophy, and we go to Hampton and Richmond at the weekend which will be a tough game.

“I believe we’ve got the capabilities and the squad to win. We’re three games away from Wembley, Macclesfield Town went there on four occasions, and I believe that we can win every game from this point.

“It’s not going to be easy and there’s a narrative that Macclesfield have lots of money, the budgets are huge and they should be winning, but that’s not the case.

“We spend every hour at the football club unpaid. What Rob [Smethurst] wanted to do was make a self-sufficient football club. It cost about £2m to open the doors for the season at Macclesfield, and whatever we brought in over that was the first season budget.

“This year, we’re bringing in about £2.5m. Those aren’t exact figures, but the profit is the first team budget. We leave it in the club for the managers to spend as part of the first team budget. We don’t take a penny, neither of us.”

For Savage the highs and the lows of his involvement with Macclesfield eclipse those of when he was playing in the Premier League.

“With a club you’re heavily invested in win, the emotions are higher now than they were when I was playing, which is quite remarkable. The first team winning or losing affects the structure of the whole club and everybody’s mood.

“As a player, I was quite selfish. If the team won and I played well, it was great. If the team lost and I’d played well, I’d be disappointed, but now, if the team lose, it’s horrific.

“I sit for hours thinking ‘what could we have done better as a collective?’. It’s worse now, Macclesfield losing, than it was losing as a Premier League player. It’s horrible.

“It’s an unpaid job, people might not believe that, but it’s something that I want to do to the best of my ability. If you get stuff wrong, you can’t sack yourself, but what I can do is try and give my knowledge to people from 30 years of experience in football.” 

With further investment, Savage sees promotion to the Football League, currently three tiers above them, a real possibility.

“I’d say under myself and Rob [Smethurst], we could achieve promotion to the National League, but I think getting out of the National League without investment would be very, very hard.

“We’ve poured in anywhere from £500,000 to £800,000 into the first team budget at this level and, if we get up to the National League, we’re probably talking over a million pounds at least on a playing budget.

“I don’t think Rob could do that on his own, so hopefully we get new investment in and with that new investment I believe we could get into the Football League, it might never happen, but anything between 5-10 years could be a possibility.”

Source: https://www.planetsport.com/soccer/news/