Salford City are in the middle of their finest spell as a Football League club on the pitch as they prepare for the biggest game in their history. The Ammies travel less than five miles on Saturday to face Manchester City in a pivotal spell that could shape their future.
Karl Robinson’s side have won six matches in a row without conceding to thrust them into the League Two automatic promotion spots and have reached the FA Cup third round for the first time. Salford won four promotions in five seasons in the aftermath of the Class of 92’s purchase a decade ago but have plateaued in the fourth tier since 2019. After three mid-table finishes and a playoff semi-final, Salford finished 20th last season and the 15-year ambition to reach the Championship by 2029 seems more fantastical than when Gary Neville announced it.
The club witnessed a rapid rise through the non-league system from the Evo-Stik North to the professional ranks, backed by the Neville brothers, Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes, Nicky Butt and more recently David Beckham. Giggs is the director of football and can be found in the dugout with Robinson after agreeing to help on the coaching side but the others are keeping a lower profile compared with the early days of publicity and documentaries, declining to speak to the national media in the buildup to Saturday.
After the excitement of the early years in the spotlight, League Two has shown the potential for Salford may not match the owners’ grand plans. Their average attendance of 2,800 is the third-lowest in the Football League, they made a £4m loss in their most recent accounts, plans to move to the 12,000-capacity AJ Bell Stadium failed and they do not own their training ground, renting a facility from Manchester United at Littleton Road for a small fee. They had to decamp to the indoor centre at The Cliff, another United-owned site, this week during the cold snap.
One member of the original ownership group, Peter Lim, departed last year and Gary Neville acquired his shares. In February it was confirmed Salford were seeking external investment but no suitors have bought a stake. Without the Singapore billionaire in the background, extra funding is required to take things forward.
“When you’re winning and doing well, I think it becomes an easier sell,” Robinson says. “My responsibility is to make sure this team keeps playing well, to make sure that the people above me and whoever that is with the money side of it find a suitable investor to support the beliefs and the dreams of the owners. People always think because the club is being put out there that the people are walking away. It’s funny the conversation that we had in the summer: they were so transparent that the Class of 92 are never going to walk away from this. They see it as a long-term drive to make Salford, or get Salford, to where they want to get to.”
Attracting a new audience has proven difficult but there will be more than 5,000 in the away end at the Etihad Stadium. It is an impressive feat considering it is a struggle to reach three figures for some League Two trips. Salford will be desperate to harness this fixture to attract new supporters by putting on a positive display against Pep Guardiola’s side.
“It’s a massive draw,” says Danny Shepherd, the editor of the Salford fanzine the Old Dead Tree. “It’s about seeing our team run out of that stadium and give it a go. It’s on telly so that’s a big thing, so the awareness of who we are may grow a bit and the word might get out because the wives, girlfriends, fathers-in-law and grandads who actually come to the game might actually think: ‘Oh, I’d go and watch them again.’ But we will only be able to see that in the months ahead.”
Salford are third in League Two and optimism is building that they could exit it through the ceiling rather than the floor. Robinson is doing an impressive job with the players at his disposal and the academy is starting to produce players to give hints of an upward curve. The former Oxford manager backed the owners after meeting them just over a year ago to discuss the job. He had so much faith he did not sign a contract for the first seven matches of his reign and he could further repay their decision to hire him by attracting the finance to kickstart their ambitions.
“When you’re in the shadows of two of the biggest football clubs in world football, which is Manchester City and Manchester United, within the confines of where we are, we’re always going to be in their shadows,” says Robinson. “The history, the success that they’ve had, the enormous worldwide support that they get, we’re always playing in their shadows. What this game certainly has done, it’s certainly woken a few people up and gone: ‘Oh, hang on, they’re doing OK, they’ve had 10 years, they’ve had multiple promotions.’ We haven’t stalled.”
Salford may not have stalled but they are in need of forward momentum and the next five months, starting on Saturday, could define the next decade under the Class of 92.
