The Hangover: a guy drank for four days, then bought a club that later killed Crystal Palace
Reading Time: 2min | Tue. 13.01.26. | 21:43
Rob Smethurst was drinking himself into oblivion when he purchased Macclesfield. Now they're chasing FA Cup history
It was a giant-killing born not from careful planning or long-term strategy, but from one of the strangest origin stories in modern football - a four-day drinking binge and a drunken click on Rightmove!
During the Covid lockdown, English businessman Rob Smethurst, deep into a boozy spiral, spotted the bankrupt club for sale and bought it within 24 hours.
He had no business plan, no experience of running a football club and no idea what awaited him at Moss Rose.
"I was drinking crazy amounts," Smethurst admits. "I'd go to the pub at two in the afternoon and always be the last one to leave. I was on a four-day rolling bender. Then my mate told me Macclesfield were for sale - and I just bought them. I didn't know what I was doing. It was just something to do when you're p****d."
When he finally turned up to collect the keys, the reality hit hard. The Moss Rose stadium was falling apart: smashed windows, broken seats, weeds growing through cracked tarmac.
"I remember thinking: what the f*** have I bought?"
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Smethurst poured more than £4million of his own money into the club, rebuilding the stadium, installing a plastic pitch and creating a business model that now generates around £2.5million a year. Three promotions later, Macclesfield are in the sixth tier. Moreover, that reckless decision has delivered an FA Cup miracle - and a club that has risen from ruin to topple Premier League royalty.
"We've kind of bought our way up the leagues," Smethurst admits. "People hated us for it. But now we're starting to level out."
From a drunken click on Rightmove to a sold-out FA Cup night against Premier League royalty, Macclesfield's rise is one of English football's strangest - and most human - revival stories.
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