They belted out Adele’s Someone Like You from the home dressing-room. It’s something the Macclesfield players have done after each of their promotions up the non-league pyramid since the club was resurrected five years ago, from the North-West Counties Premier Division to the National League North.
Never in their wildest dreams did they think they would be celebrating beating FA Cup holders Crystal Palace in front of a full-house here at the Leasing.com Stadium and millions more watching live on television.
It was the first time since the competition started in 1871 that a team in the sixth-tier has knocked out top-flight opposition.
These two clubs were separated by 117 places, and it was 117 years since a non-league club had eliminated the holders. That was Wolves in 1909. And their giantkillers? Crystal Palace.
This beat anything that has happened since. Ronnie Radford’s Hereford, Mickey Thomas’ Wrexham, Sutton United knocking out Coventry City.
No wonder Wayne Rooney’s voice quivered at the final whistle as he clutched a microphone and tried to put into words what his younger brother John had just achieved as Macclesfield manager.
'I’m actually getting emotional,’ said Rooney who had flown back from Barbados on Friday night to be a pundit for the BBC in the freezing temperatures in Cheshire.
‘To see my younger brother achieve this. He’s not long been in management. To get to the fourth round of the FA Cup and beat a Premier League team in Crystal Palace, I’m so proud of him.’
Let’s not forget that it’s less than a month since John, 35, had to call each of his players one-by-one to tell them that their teammate Ethan McLeod had tragically been killed in a car crash on the M1 as he travelled back from a match at Bedford.
It has been an incredible effort to lift this club off the floor and cause arguably the greatest cup upset of all time. McLeod’s parents Gillian and Gordon were here to see it.
To put it in some perspective, Macclesfield captain Paul Dawson was shovelling snow off the astroturf pitch on Tuesday night. He dropped off a new set of tracksuits the night before the game after finishing his job packing scented candles and diffusers.
Dawson, a signing from Bamber Bridge in 2023, was up against Adam Wharton, an England international valued at up to £100million. Like the rest of his teammates, you really couldn’t tell the difference between the two.
The biggest credit you can give to Macclesfield – and the most damning condemnation of Palace – is that they deserved this.
They earned it from the first minute when a well-rehearsed kick-off routine saw Dawson clatter into Jaydee Canvot as they went for a high ball. Both players suffered cuts, Dawson requiring a bandage.
Teammate Sam Heathcote was adjusting it from behind as they prepared for the freekick that saw Dawson use his bloodied head to put Macclesfield in front from Luke Duffy’s free kick in the 43rd minute, meeting the ball in mid-air and guiding it wide of goalkeeper Walter Benitez.
‘I’ll take the assist for that!’ said Heathcote, a primary school teacher from Altrincham which has celebrated its fair share of FA Cup shocks over the years.
‘Smashing into him (Canvot) early doors set the tone. If I was them, I’d be thinking “oof, this lot are up for it”.
‘It’s not supposed to happen is it? That final whistle, I can’t begin to describe what it felt like. I didn’t expect to be going to school on Monday having won.’
Dawson stood next to his teammate wearing a fresh bandage and a pair of trout flip-flops, apt for a man who had just led a team of minnows to victory.
‘My head’s concrete. It’s solid,’ he said. ‘I didn’t want to come of the pitch at all, the adrenaline gets you through it.
‘The gaffer gave us a game plan. We were going to make it horrible, it was on a plastic pitch, we were going to get in their faces.
‘It’s Man United next for me. We’ve beaten the holders so we can beat anyone.’
As Dawson led the celebrations in front of the Star Lane End after scoring, the cameras switched to Glasner who slumped back his seat, and then to Macclesfield owner Rob Smethurst in the stands. ‘Wow!’ he mouthed as the fans around him savoured the moment.
Sensing a seismic shock, Glasner sent on reinforcements at the interval, including new club record £35m signing Brennan Johnson. If anything, it was Macclesfield who raised their game in the second half and increased their lead as the clock struck the hour.
It was a dog’s dinner of a goal, but their fans won’t care. Palace failed to clear their lines as the ball bobbled around the penalty area, and it rolled to Lewis Fensome.
He met with it with a shot that glanced off Marc Guehi and deflected to Isaac Buckley-Ricketts, a part-time music producer who goes by the name Mudboy LM. He stuck out a foot and diverted it just enough to wrong-foot Benitez.
Palace hit back in the 89th minute when Yeremy Pino curled a free kick into the top corner, but Macclesfield hung on for a famous victory.
It’s less than eight months since Guehi was lifting the FA Cup in front of Palace’s fans at Wembley as they celebrated beating Manchester City to win the club’s first ever major trophy.
Now the England defender had to go over to the away supporters here and apologise for the lamest of cup defences.
‘I have no words for this performance,’ said a crestfallen Glasner.
Smethurst, the man who bought Macclesfield on Rightmove in 2020 while on a four-day bender to begin this incredible journey, has been sober ever since.
As the celebrations went on long into the night, he was probably the only one.