Vale scout's words rally Silkmen to win (From Community Newsgroup)

Vale scout's words rally Silkmen to win

11:17am Thursday 4th December 2008

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Macclesfield Town 3 PortVale 1 Keith Alexander’s Macclesfield needed no better motivation than to hear Port Vale chief scout Ray Williams label the Silkmen as a poor side just an hour before kick off.

Macc outplayed the once mighty Vale across all areas of the park, especially in midfield where ball players Terry Dunfield and Lee Bell took control.

The man who took the headlines was striker Francis Green, seemingly keen for a move from the Moss, and proving his credentials to a host of watching clubs with two superb strikes.

Macc took the lead in the eighth minute when impressive young defender Matthew Flynn clipped a neat pass to Martin Gritton.

He glanced the ball backwards for Green to collect with his back to goal before turning cleverly and flashing a low shot past Joe Anyon at his near post.

Louis Dodds did fire a low drive wide for Port Vale, but the first half belonged to Macc with Dunfield firing over the bar on 34 minutes after a marauding run.

The Vale, urged on by a hugely partisan 4,864 crowd of which 684 were Macc loyalists, came out firing on all cylinders after the break, Dodds chipped from 18 yards on to the cross bar, with Paul Edwards testing Jon Brain with a close range header.

A Gritton shot was then smothered by Anyon before the Vale laid siege with Dodds, Scott Brown and Edwards all going close from the edge of the box.

They took the lead in the 70th minute, Danny Glover delivering a defence splitting pass for Dodds to slide home from eight yards. But seconds later sub Luke Prosser laid off a suicidal back pass into the path of Franny Green who took his time, waited for his spot, committed the 'keeper and then thumped a low shot inside the near post from 20 yards.

Surely it couldn’t get better for the Macc army, but it did - Gritton sending them home in joyful delirium when he nagged at the heels of Anthony Griffiths to win the ball and then float a glorious drive past the helpless Anyon.

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