Co-Chairman Rod Taylor welcomed Mansfield and Macclesfield in the recent double header programme.
Our association with Macclesfield Town goes back to 1968 with our first meeting in the Northern Premier League, then in the Football Conference and now we cross swords again in the EFL.
As a 17-year-old youth, when I stood on the terraces at Moss Rose in September 1970 with Macc as NPL champions and inaugural winners of the FA Trophy, I could not have dreamt that one day we would be meeting each other in the Football League and certainly it had never entered my head that I would one day be a director of the Christie Park club! (26 years this week!)
Graham Howse and myself travelled to Walsall recently for an EFL meeting of League 1 and League 2 clubs. The objectives of the meeting were to look at and discuss future financial controls and the related sanctions that the clubs in these divisions have to adhere to.
It was an interesting debate which broadened out into how clubs can look to achieve greater financial sustainability as well as providing stricter and more identified sanctions for breaches of the regulations.
We have already lost one historic club, Bury FC, founded in 1885. This is a situation that not only affects players and staff but individual families and whole communities.
The football family and authorities MUST come up with remedies to the current problems otherwise there will be other casualties in clubs across the country.
We need to take action now to protect our national game as we know and love it.