SILKMEN ... 2 SOW'S EAR ...

This was a top-quality, old-school historic duffing by Captain Courageous Dawson and his non-League giants ... and an embarrassment for the holders

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

In the very first challenge between a nonLeaguer and a 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 it - lead 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 halftime, the moment the script demanded. A Luke Duffy free-kick and who gets there first to send home a header? Captain Courageous himself.

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 giant-killing performances.