Steve Macauley

Steve Macauley (born March 4, 1969 in Lytham, north-west England) is an ex-professional footballer, who played primarily at centre half. He began his career at Manchester City as a trainee. After a brief spell at local side Fleetwood, he joined Crewe Alexandra in March 1992 for a fee of £25,000. He went on to spend ten years at the South Cheshire club under manager Dario Gradi.

Career

Crewe Alexandra (1992-2002)

According to the football website Soccerbase, Macauley played 246 league games for Crewe, plus 16 in the Football League Cup and 20 in the FA Cup, plus 22 other assorted appearances. He is credited with having played an important role in the club's promotion to the First Division of the Nationwide League in 1997, and subsequent successful battles to stay in the division. His partners in defence included Ashley Westwood, later of Sheffield Wednesday, and Dave Walton, later of Derby County. He also played alongside future Premiership players such as Danny Murphy, Neil Lennon, Rob Hulse and Dean Ashton. Although a centre half, he did play a number of games as a forward during a striking injury crisis at the Alex during the mid-90s.

During his spell at Crewe, the club reached the 1992-93 play-off final against York, only to lose on penalties, before being promoted the following season. As mentioned above, they then rose into what is now the Football League Championship following victory at Wembley against Brentford on 25 May 1997.

Rochdale and Macclesfield (2002-2004)

In the summer of 2002 after an injury-hit final season during which he was loaned to neighbours Macclesfield Town, Macauley joined Rochdale but only made six league appearances. During this spell he had two further loan spells at Macclesfield before joining them on a permanent basis. Many of his old Crewe supporterswho felt that he was unfairly treated at Rochdale having been such a good professional at Crewe.

Joint testimonials (2003)

He eventually retired from League football at the end of the 2003-04 season having had a joint testimonial with fellow former Alex defender Shaun Smith at Crewe's Alexandra Stadium in 2003 (the game was held over from the previous year). The two players' careers had become linked through their many seasons together in Crewe's defence after both joining during early 1992.

Bamber Bridge (2004-2005)

After leaving Macclesfield in 2003-04, he went on to play for semi-professional Lancashire club Bamber Bridge in the Northern Premier League. His debut came in a 1-0 away victory over Blyth Spartans and his final game for Bamber was the return fixture against the same opposition, Macauley scoring the consolation goal as his team lost 3-1.

After retirement

Macauley qualified as a physiotherapist during his playing career. He joined Fleetwood as physio and member of the coaching staff in 2005. He left the club at the end of the 2007-08 season to concentrate on his physiotherapy practice, but was re-engaged by Fleetwood as caretaker-manager in September 2008, following the dismissal of manager Tony Greenwood after a poor start to Fleetwood's inaugural Conference North campaign. He returned to the coaching staff following the appointment of Micky Mellon as Fleetwood manager.

External links

*soccerbase|4680|Steve Macauley