Good game: Stevenage Borough 4-0 Macclesfield Town – BoroGuide

Good Game: The series about the amazing, utterly memorable, incredibly dramatic and downright ridiculous games involving Stevenage City over the years. But we will insist that we accept no blame for memories distorted by time, age or alcohol consumption at the time. We will never refer to games where Macclesfield town either – especially on Broadhall Way. Things like that never happened, don’t you know…

…Well, except this one.

Stevenage Borough 4-0 Macclesfield Town

Broadhall Way, Stevenage – 2 December 1995 – GM Vauxhall Conference

One 4-0 win from the 1995-96 season is firmly etched in Boro folklore. But it wasn’t the only one that needed attention. Yeah, so Woking’s indoor binning on Easter Monday might be the season-defining result; one that all but confirmed that we would seal the title. And we know more or less how that turned out. So, what’s that other 4-0 win we want to talk about? Well, it was when we ran that Macclesfield Town campaign earlier.

The background

The 1994–95 GM Vauxhall Conference season was Boro’s first at such an exalted level. It was a difficult start for us. Our opening day win at Stafford Rangers was a bit of a false dawn; the next few weeks were very challenging and things were a little iffy for a while. But Cloughie’s men came back and we eventually finished in a respectable fifth place. And we were “only” 13 points away from title winners Macclesfield Town.

As it goes, we actually deducted four points from the Silkmen that campaign. A 1-1 draw at home would be followed by a final day romp at Moss Rose; Boro’ had no 3-0 wins. So that gave us some hope that we could really make our presence felt in the 1995-1996 season. The Silk Men were still there too. As we were soon to discover, in December 1994 their ground was not to the liking of the Football League. Then they stopped.

Stevenage Borough 4-0 Macclesfield Town: The rundown

As we’ve just hinted at, Boro’ came into the 1995-96 season with some momentum – and quite a bit of talent in the squad. The hope was that we could do something special not misplaced. We had made a strong start. But our form had room for improvement. And on Saturday 2 December we welcomed the defending champions to Broadhall Way. At this stage we had completed fifteen league matches and were in sixth place.

Now take that with a fair grain of salt. Yes, we were sixth. And yes, we were 15 points behind the Zijdemannen; the Cheshire side led the pack at this point. But our fifteen games played were collectively the lowest in the division. We had at least three or four games in hand on most other teams – adding up to an incredible SIX in hand on Macclesfield Town. Yeah, so points on the board are a big deal. But we were still very much in the running for honors.

However, a nice big statement heading into the festive season would be hugely helpful.

Stevenage Borough 4-0 Macclesfield Town: New stars are born…

It would be a very difficult question. The Silkmen came into the match with an eleven-match unbeaten streak on their side. Mind you, our form was also strong. A 3-1 home draw against Southport was the only setback in a run of six league games that had produced five wins and 24 goals. The series concluded a week beforehand with an incredible 8-0 win at Runcorn. Not flawless, but our team was ready to take on the current kings.

The status quo was turned upside down within the first ten minutes. Dave Venables in particular was in great form and it was his good work that prompted captain Steve Berry to put us ahead after nine minutes. It was the end of the first half, but not the end of our chances. We had put on a formidable show of force. The only problem was we didn’t have the advantage to show for it.

The good news was that we would not let up in the second half. A huge penalty was turned down as we tried to build that lead. Fortunately we didn’t have to wait too long; a 20-yard stunner from Tony Lynch and added our second on 65 minutes. Our third goal was also a special achievement, this time from Efe Sodje. The defender walked out from the back, composed himself wonderfully and slotted home neatly. Now, with 15 minutes to go, our dominance was assured; the result a formality.

Of course, there was still time for Barry Hayles to take action. And a fifth attempt right at the end was so close, but would have only been a second icing on the icing.

Stevenage Borough 4-0 Macclesfield Town: And after that…?

It’s hard to say this wasn’t a real marker in the title race. We would make up these games quickly and take control of the summit. The Silkmen remained in the title race for quite a few more weeks, but would eventually fall away; Woking will be the main rival of our hopes. And we would do to them what we did to Macclesfield later that season. What this all led to was us being able to be crowned the non-league side to beat in England.

We’re not so sure about the long-term impact of this result. The bottom line is that we would fall short in our 1996-1997 title defense; the Silkmen claimed a second championship in just a few seasons. And well, *this* result on Broadhall Way had a lot to do with pushing the pendulum in their direction. It stung. From then on our fortunes diverged. Macclesfield went up, while we fell off the pace in subsequent seasons.

But even if it was just for one season in the mid-nineties, we were the team to beat. And we announced it with results like this in December 1995…

Thanks to stevenagefootballarchive.com. Image credit unknown – please contact us for proper credit or removal.

• Complete details of the 1995-96 GM Vauxhall Conference season