"If I fail this season, I have to walk away from the football club."
Robbie Savage didn't fail as Macclesfield head coach.
In his first managerial role, the former Wales midfielder achieved the aims set out at the start of the 2024-25 campaign as his team won promotion to National League North with six games to spare.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementThe Silkmen were the first side from the top seven tiers of English football to secure promotion, and the first team since 2017 to break the 100-point barrier in the Premier Division of the Northern Premier League.
Then, five weeks before the 2025-26 season began, Savage suddenly left Macclesfield, accepting a job in the league above when he was named as Forest Green Rovers head coach.
That brought an end to a four-year association with Macclesfield and a remarkable journey alongside best friend and club owner Robert Smethurst - the beginnings of which were witnessed in the 2021 BBC documentary Robbie Savage: Making Macclesfield FC.
In a new follow-up for 2025 on BBC iPlayer, we are taken behind the scenes as Savage begins his career in management at the club he helped to create.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementRobbie Savage: Managing Macclesfield follows players, staff and fans through the tears and triumphs of a promotion-winning campaign.
Will Savage's brotherly bond with Rob survive the ride? Or will success come at a cost?
Savage and Smethurst met through Smethurst's previous business Pro Football Academy [Getty Images]After Macclesfield Town were expelled from the National League and wound up in the High Court in September 2020, the club's assets were put up for sale and purchased a month later by local businessman Smethurst.
Macclesfield FC was born and Smethurst brought in long-term friend Savage as director of football.
The club had no players, no league to play in and a stadium that had fallen into disrepair. Smethurst and Savage had nine months to build a club from the ashes in time for the 2021-22 season, when they entered at the ninth tier of English football.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementThe pair assembled a squad that won promotions in each of their first two seasons, but momentum was halted in 2024 with a Northern Premier League play-off final defeat by Marine.
"At that point, Robbie had to step up as the manager," Smethurst says.
Boss Michael Clegg departed the club after the loss and a day later, Savage was appointed head coach.
"We've been through so much together. Now I'm the manager and he's the boss," Savage adds.
"I never, ever, ever wanted to be a manager, until the point we lost the play-off final. This season I can't fail."
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementIn the new documentary, we see Savage take to management like a duck to water. Macclesfield were unbeaten in their first 17 games and the former Premier League player felt his team could go the entire season without defeat.
His squad bought in to that, and we hear from a number of players about Savage's style of management.
"He's quite different to what you might perceive him to be," says star striker Danny Elliott. "He cares a lot."
"Robbie understands us," forward D'Mani Mellor adds.
The Silkmen didn't manage an 'invincible' season but lost just three matches as they won promotion to the sixth tier, secured with a comeback victory over Bamber Bridge.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement"He's proved himself to be an unbelievable manager," Smethurst says. "I'm so proud of him."
As fans storm the pitch in celebration, the players are filmed singing along to music from Adele in the dressing room, alongside Savage and Smethurst.
'I feared failure for the first time in my life'
Macclesfield players sang along to Adele's Someone Like You hit after winning promotion to the National League North [Getty Images]In her hit Someone Like You, Adele sings of love, loss and moving on in the aftermath of a relationship ending.
Macclesfield soon had to deal with such a scenario.
Savage's success with Macclesfield was rewarded with an approach from Forest Green - an offer he couldn't refuse.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementNot only did Macclesfield lose their manager, but his assistant John McMahon and three players went too, as Tre Pemberton, Neil Kengni and club captain Laurent Mendy followed Savage to Gloucestershire.
"I've always been honest and transparent with Rob," Savage says in the documentary. "I rung him and said I've been offered the opportunity to speak to a club. Rob said 'you have my blessing, go and smash it'. That was all I needed to hear."
While Smethurst clearly wants his friend to succeed, he is seen to be visibly hurt by the speed of Savage's exit.
"It's like losing my left arm," he says. "We had just won the league. It didn't make sense as to why he was going.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement"Sav had loads of opportunities to leave, I didn't think it would ever happen. I thought we were in it together. Our dream was always to get this football club back to League Two.
"Now he's gone it does feel very different, but nobody can ever deny what Sav did for this football club."
At the end of the documentary, the pair are reunited as Smethurst visits Savage at his new club.
They hug and go for a walk around the training facilities before sitting down in Savage's office.
"We were all on such a high," Smethurst tells him. "We were going into the summer, we had spent ages looking at players, we had a few arguments over budgets.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement"It happened so quick, it was like the heart had been ripped out of the middle.
"People genuinely believed that you were going to be with us forever. It was the speed and the letdown to the fans at the time on how quick it happened."
Savage says he didn't realise the backlash would be as great as it was.
"It makes me sad," Savage says. "Every time I drive past I want to pop in. That hurts because it was our club. We built it from nothing.
"I could have kept that job for five years with you because we were together. I feared failure for the first time in my life. The stress was too big, I felt so much responsibility and it took over my life. Here I can just concentrate on being a football manager."
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementAt the time of writing, Forest Green are fourth in the National League, one point off top spot with only two defeats all season.
Under new manager John Rooney, Macclesfield are 14th in National League North but have games in hand that could push them towards the play-offs, and are through to the second round of the FA Cup.
"If you hadn't have given me the opportunity to manage the first team, I wouldn't be sitting here," Savage tells Smethurst. "So I owe you everything in terms of my managing career.
"That's why Macclesfield will always be part of me."
Savage may have left Macclesfield, but his impact away from the pitch will be remembered alongside his team's success.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementAs well as giving the town a football club again, Savage and Smethurst had a hugely positive impact on the community.
"We've built a monster," Smethurst says in one scene. "We've got nearly 65 staff, 38 teams, 800 kids in an academy, an international programme, we run tournaments at weekends, we've got a bar, we've got a gym."
But the pair say the football club saved them, too.
In one scene, Smethurst explains that when he bought the football club he was in a "really bad place" and close to losing his life through addiction.
"The football club was an amazing thing for me to rebuild my life," Smethurst adds.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement"It has saved my life. It's given me a direction, it's given me a purpose. I love the fans, I love the people, I love the town."
He credits his wife and family for supporting him become sober, but he is especially thankful to Savage.
"I'll never forget how much Robbie helped me and what he has done for me," he says.
"We've got a special bond. We have both needed each other through this journey and it goes much deeper than just football. It has become an unbelievable friendship that is inseparable, like brothers."
When Smethurst announced in October 2025 that he was stepping down as owner and passing on control to the club's board, he remarked how he had "struggled" without Savage at his side.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementThe friendship is what got the pair through many days on their journey, supporting each other.
As well as the footballing challenge, being a recognisable football personality added to the daily stresses that Savage had to confront.
Savage tells the cameras how the abuse he received as both a player and a manager "is part and parcel of being me".
In the documentary we see clips of opposition fans hurling abuse at Savage as he stands metres from them.
He explains how he would take a colleague wearing a bodycam to away games "to protect me and my family".
"The abuse I got as a player drove me on as a pantomime villain," Savage says. "But in non-league football when the fans are so close to you and alcohol is allowed, at times it can become a very hostile place.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement"I'm supposed to stand there and just take it and if I give it back, what will be put out is my reaction, not why I reacted."
Yet the former Leicester City, Birmingham City, Blackburn Rovers and Derby County favourite looks back fondly on his Macclesfield experience.
"What we have been through together is not just a football club," Savage says.
"It's mentally helped save me after football and I think it's saved Rob's life, I really do.
"That's how important it is to the both of us."
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