ROBBIE SAVAGE wants Wrexham and Macclesfield to celebrate promotion glory this season but warns it will be a massive failure if both clubs don’t.

Wrexham-born Savage is back ‘down-town’ this weekend as the Reds host Macclesfield in a pre-season friendly at The Racecourse on Saturday.

Savage and business partner Rob Smethurst have helped revive Macc’s fortunes - winning the title in their first season back in the North West Counties Premier Division.

Wrexham, owned by Hollywood movie stars Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney, missed out on promotion back to the Football League last season but rated 6/4 by the bookies, they are everyone’s favourites to win the National League title this time around.

“Wrexham are the promotion favourites and so are we,” said Savage, who says he wouldn’t miss Saturday’s game for the world. “If they don’t win the league this year, it’s a failure and that’s the same for us at Macclesfield too.”

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Savage cites the money that has been ploughed into both clubs over the past 12 months as the main reason why end-of-season success should be a mere formality.

“You look at the investment, the budgets,” added Savage. “Me and Rob have put in four to five million since we bought Macclesfield and there’s been big investment from Ryan and Rob at Wrexham.

“I know we’re playing at different levels but there are so many similarities between the two clubs - we’ve both got A-listers who own the club for a start!

“The only difference - and I’m saying all this tongue-in-cheek - is that we’ve won a trophy and I’m happy to show Ryan our silverware!

“Seriously though, what they have done for the club, the town, the people of Wrexham is great.

“They’ve brought the community together and that’s exactly what we’ve done at Macclesfield.

“We’ve made it our point to be transparent with the fans from day one - to let them know what we’re doing. And the club has grown and grown.

“We all know how well Wrexham are supported - both at home and away - but we were getting big crowds too - 4,720 for the last day of the season. It was the seventh biggest crowd in non-league football that day.

“That’s how far we have come. But we want more and have set out sights on promotion this season - just like Wrexham have.”

Macclesfield’s rise featured on a BBC documentary where fans saw Savage, the former Wales international and Premier League midfielder, and Smethurst rebuild the former Macclesfield Town club that went bust two years ago.

The Leader: ALL SMILES: Robbie Savage celebrates in the Macclesfield dressing room. Picture: MACCLESFIELD FCALL SMILES: Robbie Savage celebrates in the Macclesfield dressing room. Picture: MACCLESFIELD FC

“What’ happened at Macclesfield is the biggest achievement of my career because there’s so much more to running a football club than putting a team out on a Saturday,” added Savage, who is Director of Football at the Cheshire club.

“It’s been hard work, so hard at times and it has devoured my time but I love it. The club is prospering in so many ways.

“We’ve got 600 in the Academy, 16 different businesses running here and from under sevens to the first team, the club won 18 trophies last year.

“So it’s not just the first team we’re interested in, it’s the whole club, the town and, like I said before, we’ve brought the community together which is what we set out to do.”

Savage, who hails from Bradley and used to play for Brickfield Rangers in the Wrexham and District Youth League before signing for Manchester United, says the documentary showing his and Smethurst’s bid to build a phoenix club at Moss Rose was a success.

And with the Reds’ ‘Welcome to Wrexham’ docuseries due out next month, Savage knows that will be great viewing.

“Ours was a success and the Wrexham one on Disney will be too,” said Savage.

“We gained a lot of followers from the Macclesfield documentary and Wrexham will be the same.

“The fact that Ryan and Rob own the club has already brought in new fans from all over who now want to follow Wrexham. They’ll get even more when this is screened next month.”

READ MORE: 'We’re odds-on favourites and deserve to be'