At long last the Gods have smiled down on us when, after weeks of dubious decisions by referees, we were given a dubious penalty of our own.  One that was good enough to win our first game in ages and take us off the bottom of the table.

Jan started the game by bringing Youssou Diop and Abdou Sall back from injury.  Simon Brown was dropped, surprisingly, to the bench where he was sitting alongside Iyseden Christie.

The first half was instantly forgettable from our point of view.  The team lacked every desirable asset possible.  No passion, skill, team work, passing ability or any interest in playing at all.

Macc were on the attack from the very first minute and only a mixture of good keeping and poor finishing stopped them from rattling in five or six first half goals.

John Miles went close twice with both his chances going just wide and Matthew Tipton also went close with a shot that was well blocked by John Danby.

For us, we just had the one half chance from an Abdou Sall header that was easily claimed by Steve Wilson in the Macclesfield goal.

Just a word on yet another poor referee.  Abdou found himself in the book after a rather harsh decision.

Not for the first time was Jon Parkin was guilty of backing into players then falling to a heap on the floor.  The ref ran almost the width of the pitch brandishing his writing tools and straight away put Salls name into the book even though he hadn't seen the offence.  The way he re-acted I thought it was going to be a red but he must have thought better of it once he got there.

Parkin got away with this tactic for almost the remainder of the game.

The second half was delayed slightly while Jan Molby cleaned the tea and coffee off the dressing room walls.  The rant must have worked because we were a different side in this half.

Right from the re-start Kelvin Langmead was in the thick of it, chasing down balls and laying them off to Diop.  Diops' trickery was playing havoc with the Macc back line and they were having a tough time coping with it.

Attacking wise Macc were still getting their fair share and there was one heart stopping moment when a shot from Tipton was pushed onto the post by Danby when it looked as if he'd scored.

Even though we were now making a game of it our shooting skills had still gone AWOL and we were seeing a lot of our efforts sailing high and wide too often.  At least we were having a go now.

Half way through the half Iyseden Christie came on at the expense of a tiring Diop.  Straight away he made a difference, using his 'bulk' to keep the ball and scaring Macc witless.  He reminds me of the old Cov forward, Micky Quinn.  Short, round and lethal.

He almost scored straight away when he met a Keates cross but saw his header well stopped by 'chicken legs Wilson'.

On seventy five minutes, during a spell of intense pressure from the Harriers, Macclesfield were awarded a penalty.  From our end it was hard to see what for.

It appears that McMahon was on the ground and as Tipton jumped over him he tugged at his foot and brought him down.  He got himself booked for that and, if Tipton hadn't been heading away from goal, could have seen a red card instead.

Luckily for us the Maccs accuracy hadn't improved and, with Danby diving in the wrong direction, Tipton sent it heading for the corner flag.  That was one big let-off.

Those Gods were laughing now and we had our next piece of good fortune almost immediately.  After the penalty miss Jan bought on Simon Brown for the lacklustre Ian Foster and he found himself in the middle of the action straight away.

He collected the ball twenty five yards out and with his sights set on goal went there.  At the last minute he was bought down by the ex WBA defender Graham Potter on the edge of the area.  It was certainly outside the area but only just.

At first the ref gave a free kick but was then informed by the linesman that he had signalled a penalty.

Without our usual penalty taker, Foster, Richie Appleby stepped up to take the spot kick and unlike his Macclesfield counterpart he made no mistake.

With the four minutes added on for stoppages all hearts were in mouths as Mike Sheron capitalised on an Abdou mistake but he could only watch as his shot was saved by Danby.

At last a win and with the return of some of the crocks we might have started to see some kind of light at the end of the tunnel.  A win or draw at Southend next Saturday would be good.

Even better would be if these rumours of unrest between Jan Molby and Colin Youngjohns were proved to be un-warranted.  In-fighting at this time is the last things us long suffering fans want.