Macclesfield Town have been wound up after a judge was told the football club owe more than £500,000. Judge Sebastian Prentis made a winding-up order at a virtual hearing in the specialist insolvency and companies court, and his ruling is set to bring to an end the history of a club founded in 1874 and which had recently dropped into the National League.

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The court was told the club owe nearly £190,000 in tax and two other creditors were owed more than £170,000 each, including John Askey, the club’s former manager. Askey led the Silkmen to promotion back to the Football League at the end of the 2017-18 season before leaving Macclesfield to join Shrewsbury.

Lawyers representing HM Revenue and Customs had applied for a winding-up order. The judge said he could see nothing which gave him “any comfort” that the club can pay the debts, and refused a request by the club’s owner, Amar Alkadhi, who had asked for a further eight-week adjournment so that a takeover could be completed, and also provided a document to suggest he had access to £1.1m of funds.

Judge Prentis said Alkadhi had been given “ample opportunity” to pay off the club’s debts.

Macclesfield were relegated from League Two into the National League, after being docked 17 points in total for breaches of regulations relating to non-payment of wages, which dropped them to the bottom of League Two. That granted a stay of execution to Stevenage, who had been bottom on points-per-game after the curtailment of the 2019-20 season in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Tim Flowers, the former England goalkeeper, was last month appointed to manage the team, who played a local friendly on Tuesday night against Witton Albion.