JOHN Miles admitted he could not quite believe his eyes after netting his first goal in 40 matches with a wonder strike after just 58 seconds of the local derby with Rochdale.
It was a sweet way for the midfielder, celebrating his 27th birthday, to break his Stanley duck in his 28th appearance for the club over two spells - separated by a period on loan at MK Dons at the end of last season.
But Miles, who before that averaged better than a goal every four starts for Macclesfield Town, was left rueing his side’s failure to convert a promising 45 minutes into a whole performance as the Reds were overwhelmed in the second half.
The previous time Miles found the net was in his final game for Town on the final day of the 2006/7 season, since when he had endured over 2,500 minutes of playing time without scoring.
He joked: "I think it was about 59 months since I got my last goal! I think their lad cleared it and backed off and it sat up perfectly and I caught it well. It was a good strike but when it got close to the goal I thought it was going to hit the bar.
"It was nice to finally score but at the end of the day it was a disappointing result. We couldn’t really get out of our half in the second half even though we still had two good chances. We weren’t good enough."
