MACC-GIC OF THE CUP

Dawson delivers bloody good display to knock out holders Palace and help honour lost striker McLeod.

- ANDY DUNN

THIRTY seconds. That is all it took for Paul Dawson to give blood for the Macclesfield cause.

In the first challenge between non-leaguer and Premier Leaguer, the captain cut open his head.

Soon after, the big bandage came out.

Football fans of a certain age will know the one. The Terry Butcher one, Stockholm, 1989.

Never mind the claret, strap it up, and get on with it.

And not just get on with itlead by example, battle for everything, leave it all out there.

It was as old school as the peaked cap worn by Max Dearnley in the Macclesfield goal.

And then, just before half-time, the moment the script demanded. A Luke Duffy free-kick and who gets there first to send home a header? Captain Courageous himself.

And it was a moment the 27-year-old will never forget.

When a career that has taken in Morecambe, Lancaster City, Bamber Bridge and Macclesfield comes to an end, he will have this.

The goal that set up one of the grand, old competition's great performances.