Silkmen Stats

MACCLESFIELD make their fifth visit to Home Park tomorrow and Statso has taken his look at the Silkmen record at the Theatre of Greens.

Overall summary: P 4 W 3 D 0 L 1 F 7 A 3

First time: Our first game of the 2000s saw us come from 1-0 down to beat the Silkmen 3-2 on Monday, January 3, 2000. Current Port Vale boss John Askey gave our visitors an early lead in this Division Three fixture, but two goals from Ian Stonebridge and one from Craig Taylor gave Kevin Hodges’ men victory.

Last time: Argyle, still in administration, bottom of the entire EFL and without a win all season, beat Macclesfield 2-0 in Carl Fletcher’s first match in charge on Saturday, September 24, 2011. Full-back Robbie Williams and striker Warren Feeney scored our goals in this League Two game.

Biggest win: We have twice beaten Town 2-0. As well as the 2011 victory detailed above, we also beat the Cheshire team by the same scoreline on Saturday, September 22, 2001. Lee Hodges and David Friio scored for Paul Sturrock’s men in this League Two match.

Heaviest defeat: Kevin Hodges’ Greens lost 0-1 to Macclesfield on Saturday, September 2, 2000. This is the only time that we have failed to beat Town at Home Park. Striker Richie Barker scored the only goal of this Division Three match. Barker’s brother, Chris, later played for Argyle and sadly passed away this year.

Most goals in a single game: Five, in our 3-2 win in the first meeting between the clubs in January 2000 (see above).

Further interesting facts: Our last home match against Town in September 2011 was a ‘Fans Reunited’ fixture. Kind-hearted supporters of other clubs from across the country converged on Home Park to support the Greens in our hour of need and boosted the gate by almost 1,000 compared with our previous home match.

Our eight successive league losses leading up to the above match is the third worst sequence in Argyle’s history in the EFL – and the second worst in a single season. We have twice lost nine league games in a row. This first occurred in 1947 under Jack Tresadern and included the final six games of the 1946-7 season and the first three matches of the 1947-8 campaign. The second occurrence was in the 1963-4 season under Andy Beattie. That run started with a 0-3 defeat at home to Northampton Town on October 12, 1963 and continued up to and including a 0-1 loss at home to Leeds United on December 7. Interestingly, in all four of these seasons, Argyle managed to avoid relegation.

Our 2-0 win over Macclesfield in September 2001 was our fifth win in six EFL games and our sixth game undefeated, a run that was to extend to 19. This represents our longest ever undefeated run in a single season in the League and our second-best sequence without a loss in our history. Our record run came in 1929 and included the last four matches of the 1928-29 season and the first 18 games of 1929-30. The sequence ended at Coventry City on Christmas Day 1925 in a 0-1 defeat.