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Owned by a bunch of legendary former United players, Salford City is on a sensational run
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Salford City FC’s stadium was crumbling when Manchester United legend and co-owner of the club Gary Neville inspected it for the first time last year. The toilets were a shambles. Fifteen players shared a cold shower and their striker Gareth Seddon was more worried about catching chlamydia than scoring goals. “Welcome to non-league football," Seddon says in a documentary on the club produced by the BBC.
A fan says in the documentary: “If you want the circus, go down the road to Old Trafford." Only thing is, it’s more like a funeral at Manchester United these days. Manager Louis van Gaal makes his team play in a drab, uninspiring, characterless and moth-eaten style, leaving fans with their heads shaking as the team labours from one 0-0 to another. But 7km away, their most celebrated bunch of footballers—the Class of 1992, have started a revolution at Salford City FC: The Neville brothers, Nicky Butt, Ryan Giggs (now assistant coach at United) and Paul Scholes bought the club in 2014, got an investment from Singaporean billionaire Peter Lim and even tasted promotion to the Northern Premier League Premier Division.
In the second season of their ownership, Salford have a chance to create history by becoming the first club from English football’s seventh tier to make it to the third round of the FA Cup. They have two managers—Bernard Morley and Anthony Johnson, better known as Bernard and Jonno, the former a lorry driver and the latter a labourer. Their highest paid player is Seddon, at £400 (around ₹ 40,000) a week. Their first-round win over Notts County was seen by 3.5 million viewers in the UK—Manchester United versus Liverpool in the Premier League was witnessed by 2.6 million. What Scholes and Co. offer is a chance for United fans to find solace in the achievements of another club in the same city, owned by club legends at a time when theirs is in the top 4 of the Premier League—but has created fewer chances than rock-bottom Aston Villa. In fact, they’ve created the least amount of goalscoring chances (107) among all the top 4 teams even if you take into account La Liga, Bundesliga and the Serie A.
No wonder Scholes thinks it’s not enjoyable to play in van Gaal’s team—he’s having too much fun nursing a football club at the heart of the community where he was born and bred.
“You wouldn’t get Wayne Rooney coming over and high-fiving you after a great win with nine men. It’s what us fans get every week following Salford. A couple of lads I know have given up their season tickets at United and Manchester City to watch Salford—you feel part of the club and its journey," Salford fan Andy Thurston says on email.
Salford City were top of the table last season after a stunning start, but their form dipped and the five owners got on the phone to discuss whether they needed a managerial change. Managers Bernard and Jonno had quite a reputation riding on their backs. “Morley looks like he could kill someone and Jonno has the devil in his eye," Seddon says in the BBC documentary. But the devil and murderer duo spurred the team to win 15 of their last 17 games in a title-winning run.
Scholes, in his typical deadpan manner, asks at one point in the documentary: “Why the f*ck did we buy a football club?" Neville’s answer: “If you’ve had something that’s so good, like standing in that tunnel and walking out in front of 75,000 people, you’ve got to fill that hole with something." In this case, with a team that plays in a stadium that seats 1,400. Brother Phil says: “Actually owning a football club in the town that we love so much... it was like a fairy tale."
“They are no longer big names to us. They are a bunch of great blokes who have clearly come to the club to make a difference. For the right reasons, and not for vanity," season ticket-holder Chris P. Bacon says on email.
It’s not easy to follow Salford City sitting in India. In fact, their team and staff sat at a curry house and followed the promotion-deciding match last season on Twitter and text messages themselves. But that just adds to the romance of being a Salford fan. Illegal Internet streams and occasional radio commentary on UK-based websites apart, Twitter is the only way to get live reliable updates on their Northern Premier Division games.
Come Friday though, the BBC has decided to telecast their fixture against Hartlepool United. The likes of Eurosport and The Guardian will have live text. The managers will take a player or two behind a trailer to tell them they’ve been dropped. Come the final whistle, Salford will probably giant-kill, again. Scholes, Giggs, Butt and the Nevilles will then pop beers in the pint-sized dressing room.
Even if they lose, Salford can rest assured that they have enthralled. As Bacon says, “You don’t get any of that for around £50 a ticket in the Premier League."
At least not at Manchester United.
Pulasta Dhar is news editor (sport) at Firstpost.com.
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