The lower leagues are where the real test of a football manager’s mettle resides. The place where money’s tight. Where you beg, borrow or steal and look longingly at those in the Premier League gilded cage who barely acknowledge you exist.
The Class of ’92 entered this world with great confidence when they bought Salford City in 2014 and took the club from the Northern Premier League North to League Two – a climb of four divisions – in five years. When they reached League Two, Paul Scholes baldly stated the ambition. ‘I know it’s a long way off, but the target has to be getting to the Premier League at some point.’
The club have been in the same division ever since and, to put it mildly, are struggling in a way Gary Neville and Ryan Giggs would not have imagined when first hatching this plan on a train in 2012, at a time when Giggs was contemplating retirement.
It looked rosy for a while, with six millionaires – the Neville brothers, Scholes, David Beckham and Nicky Butt – and a billionaire, Singaporean tycoon Peter Lim, the project’s bankroller-in-chief propelling things along. But, piece by piece, the landscape has changed. Gary Neville stepped down as chief executive in 2022, handing over to Butt. Lim stepped away in August, leaving uncertainty over whether he will write off the £21million in loans he had made to the club. Last week, Butt left the chief executive’s post, declaring a wish to go back into coaching – though evidently not in Salford City’s dugout.
Salford City have been stuck League Two for the past five seasons since climbing four divisions in the first four years under their new owners
(L-R) Gary Neville, Nicky Butt and most recently Pete Lim have all stepped back from roles at the club
Karl Robinson’s side (left) have made a slow start to the new campaign and sit 18th after 11 matches
The club are seeking new investment and seem to need it badly. ‘Project 92 Ltd’, which effectively runs the club, is currently losing £80,000 to £100,000 a week, and has sustained losses of £23million over 10 years. But it looks a hard sell, with home league attendances averaging 2,800 this season and the club currently 18th, having finished last season nine points off the bottom of the EFL.
The Class of ’92 are still part of the picture. Scholes – head of recruitment – is around the place a lot and Giggs has been director of football for several seasons, though it only became known in March, eight months after domestic abuse charges against him were dropped.
Supporters say they see Gary Neville around the club’s Peninsula Stadium on matchdays far less. But they have spotted Roy Keane at games, even though he does not actually have any ownership. ‘That’s just him being a football addict,’ Danny Shepherd of the Salford City podcast, One Up Front, tells me.
Lim’s departure, after 10 years, is the development which poses the biggest questions about the future of the club, given the amount of cash he has ploughed in. Kieran Maguire, respected Liverpool University football finance analyst, points out that the club are paying out £128 in wages for every £120 they generate.
‘You do wonder where the natural place is for the club to be, in terms of fanbase, facilities, infrastructure, if it’s not being subsidised, without Peter Lim to pick up the slack,’ he tells me. Fans are pessimistic about the pursuit of new investors. ‘People fear going back down to the non-League. That would be a crushing blow,’ says Shepherd.
Paul Scholes remains involved with the club and acts as Salford City head of recruitment
The Ammies suffered their fourth defeat of the season in October when they went down 2-1 to Grimsby Town
The United connection is still bringing Salford material benefits. The club will be earning revenue from hosting some United Under 21s games this season and they train at United’s historic Littleton Road facility. The club’s 2022-23 accounts show that the club charged Buzz 16, owners of Neville’s The Overlap podcast, £255,000.
The Wrexham model, introduced when Ryan Reynolds, Rob McElhenney and razzmatazz replaced old-fashioned, football know-how as a route to winning games, uses those owners’ star power and film-making imagination to bring in the cash. Big-ticket US sponsors are giddy for the chance to bathe in that profile.
Beckham is no filmmaker and hardly oozes personality, though he is the one with that kind of draw if only someone had thought of turning his Salford co-ownership into a similar kind of creative property. Beckham’s 88.4million Instagram followers even puts Reynolds’ 54million in the shade, which is probably why Reynolds wanted him, as football royalty, in series one of his hit Welcome to Wrexham docu-series.
Birmingham City minority shareholder Tom Brady had poached Beckham to join him at St Andrew’s when Wrexham played there last month. Will Brady or Reynolds be returning the favour with a money-spinning appearance at the Peninsula Stadium some time soon? Don’t hold your breath.
You’ll find huge commitment at Salford City. When the club discontinued their match programme this season, podcast host Shepherd stepped in to launch an excellent fanzine, Old Dead Tree, named after a line from The Pogues’ Salford anthem Dirty Old Town, which the team run out to.
David Beckham was a surprise guest of Birmingham City owner Tom Brady at St Andrew’s last month
The interim CEO, after Butt’s departure, is club finance director Jonathan Jackson, respected in the game for a decade as Wigan Athletic chief executive. Experienced administrators in the roles that Neville and Butt have held might do those jobs better.
But everything flows from success on the field and the Class of ’92, who have worked their way through eight managers in nine years, with none lasting more than two years since 2018, are still searching for that formula. Football beyond United is unremittingly tough. ‘Welcome to our world,’ most lower league managers would probably say.
Sharp’s sad Goodison alienation
Thanks for the many responses about the great Graeme Sharp’s sad alienation from Everton. A few people tell me they hold Sharp accountable for Everton’s statement in January last year that it was ‘unsafe’ for him and other directors to attend Goodison games.
I understand that the club’s security liaison team had not found any threats to do physical harm, though did have evidence of a plan to encircle directors in a confined space and voice complaints against the custodianship of the club. Would any security team deem that a ‘safe’ environment? What terribly frail evidence on which to ostracise a legend.
Former striker Graeme Sharp remains one of Everton’s greatest ever players in their history
Premier league antics at grassroots
The junior football season, back in full swing, is bringing its usual joys, including the sight, during preparations for a free-kick last Saturday, of two young players speaking to each other from behind their hands, Premier League style. My grandson, loitering in the vicinity, detected their cunning plan. ‘They’re going to whip it in,’ he declared. The kick came to nothing and play was then delayed while the ref tied up the bootlace of one of our team, who was struggling with it. We lost 4-3. But that wasn’t the point.
That’s what a legend looks like
Sir Alex Ferguson’s removal from the Manchester United payroll, when his ambassadorial contract is ended next year, divides opinion. Surprising that Graeme Souness, for whom matches at Old Trafford were a form of warfare, should have questioned this decision more strongly than any of Ferguson’s former players.
Manchester United legend Bryan Robson raised £120,000 for young people in the city by reaching the summit of Kilimanjaro with a team of 24 climbers he was leading
For me, the ultimate ambassador for that club is Bryan Robson, quietly speaking up for United with neither ego nor self-importance, despite being a giant and superstar of his time.
On Monday, Robson reached the summit of Kilimanjaro with a team of 24 climbers he was leading, to raise £120,000 for young people across Manchester, in the name of the Manchester United Foundation. That’s what a legend looks like.
