“How many League 2 games have two Champions League winners in opposing dug outs?” asks Gary Neville as he points across the Salford City pitch. Then the former Manchester United and England defender looks around at the few officials allowed into the league game against neighbours Oldham Athletic.
“Butty [Nicky Butt], Giggsy [Ryan Giggs], Phil [Neville], Roy [Keane]…” he adds, totting up a total where around 10 per cent of those present have won football’s biggest club trophy. Unlike the others, Keane isn’t a part owner of the club, though David Beckham is. Singaporean businessman Peter Lim holds the other 40 per cent of shares.
The 'Class of ’92' lads are there because of their involvement in a club which began in 2014 when Salford were in football’s ninth tier averaging crowds of 140.
Four promotions saw one of England’s biggest cities without a football League club get into the Football League, average crowds rise to 2,500 before lockdown and the ground completely rebuilt.
Three prime time TV documentaries about that rise helped, coming as they did before it became the norm for the clubs to let cameras from Netflix or Amazon into their dressing rooms.
At 4.5 miles, Moor Lane (now known as the Peninsula Stadium) is the fourth closest football ground to Old Trafford after Maine Road FC in Chorlton, Trafford FC in Urmston and Manchester City FC in Bradford, East Manchester.
It has also been a site for organised sport for over 320 years, longer than anywhere else in what’s now Greater Manchester. Moor Lane has staged cricket, tennis, archery, athletics and rugby (Salford is better known for its top-flight rugby league team than any football club) before Salford City moved to Moor Lane in 1976.
Those fans are locals attracted to affordable, winning, football on their doorstep. Many call themselves Manchester United fans since Salford is a Red heartland and the club’s former Cliff training ground in Salford is still in use by young United sides, but, for various reasons, no longer go to Old Trafford.
There are students from Salford University who want to watch live football and might struggle to get tickets for United or City. Build it and they will come.
Salford’s fortunes are almost inverse to those of Oldham Athletic, founder members of the Premier League in 1992. The Latics have slipped through the divisions and now sit 87th of England’s 92 league clubs. They’ve also worked through an astonishing and frankly shameful 29 managers in 20 years.
The 4,000 hardcore Latics fans hold deep concerns about their owner, Moroccan football agent Abdallah Lemsagam. In the years before he took over in 2017, the club had faced winding up petitions and have done since.
Fans worry that Oldham will go the same way as nearby Bury and Macclesfield who were expelled from the English Football League in 2019 and 2020, but wages continue to be paid at Boundary Park by the owners who’ve seen their revenue shrivel with no fans.
One of those 29 Oldham managers was Paul Scholes, also one of the Champions League winners in the dug out Neville mentioned and now interim manager of Salford. Scholes grew up as an Oldham fan.
“I’ve been nervous about this since Thursday because it’s the first time that it’s ever happened,” explains United’s third top all-time appearance holder.
Scholes never came up against Oldham as he broke into United’s first team just after his boyhood team left the Premier League. “I was nervous because it’s Oldham. My dad used to take me all the time to see them and we had special times there. I live in the area; I had a tricky spell as manager there a couple of year ago.
"Maybe it would make more of a difference if fans were allowed in, it could have been a bit spikey. It’s weird without fans, strange. I’m not sure the actual game is any different but you miss the atmosphere.”
Scholes is talking in the past tense since his team have just defeated Oldham 2-0. They've now lost only one in nine, sit ninth with a game in hand and boast the best defence in the league. Scholes took charge three games ago and has won two and drawn one.
“I’m enjoying this until we find the right person to do it,” he says. “Me and my staff – Warren Joyce, Chris Casper and Carlo [Nash] – need to make sure this team is in a position to be challenging for the play offs and promotion. That’s where we think a club with this quality of players should be, but the players have to perform here. Since I’ve been here, they’ve played some really good football.”
Salford’s team includes James Wilson, a prolific striker in Manchester United’s youth and reserve teams who was given his first team debut by Ryan Giggs. It wasn’t a one off. Under Giggs’ permanent successor Louis van Gaal, Wilson started six United games, came off the bench in 14 others and scored four goals.
Then Van Gaal was sacked, Wilson became a forgotten man and was loaned to four different clubs from Brighton in the south to Aberdeen in the north. Now 24, he’s back closer to home now and, crucially, he’s scored in each of the last four games. His 24th minute finish gives Salford the lead in a fast, physical game played on a pitch that withstood survived days of heavy rain.
Several other former Manchester United players feature in the game. Oldham defender Cameron Borthwick-Jackson was United’s longest serving player when he finally departed from Old Trafford after a series of loans in the close season. The left-back is booked for a challenge which elicited a furious reaction from Salford’s players.
Oldham’s Zak Dearnley was a reserve player at United, Salford’s substitute Di’Shon Bernard is a 20-year-old defender on loan from United.
Oldham’s the current manager is Harry Kewell, who became the only Australian born player to win the Champions League, when he started in Liverpool’s epic 2005 final against AC Milan.
He stands animated during the game, his Aussie lilt prevalent in the autumnal air where the leaves on the trees have as many varieties as Salford City have boasted names. A supporters’ flag behind the goal lists them: Salford Central Mission (1940), Salford Central (1947), Salford Amateurs (1963), Salford (1978), Salford City (1990).
Salford make it 2-0 after 24 minutes. “Salford, Salford!” comes a cry from outside the ground. Someone, somewhere, is sneaking a view amid the church spires, semi-detached houses and primary schools.
“Get in!” shouts a Salford player in an environment where you can hear every utterance and profanity. Scholes lets out a little cheer. It’s the first time he’s smiled since learning of the death of his former coach Nobby Stiles the previous day.
“I remember Nobby’s laugh, a funny little giggle,” he says later. “He was a working-class north Manchester lad like me – he was from five minutes away in Collyhurst.”
Scholes’ side is now comfortable. “It’s now 2-0 for Salford and a possible second win for interim manager Paul Scholes – one more than he had while at Oldham,” says a polished female presenter for BBC national radio. Salford is now a home for the BBC, a media centre, but the club is a starting ground for young journalists too through a link up with local universities.
“Ash get back in cen [centre],” cries a midfielder in a less refined accent, to Salford’s road runner-style forward and second goalscorer, Ash Hunter.
As substitutes warm up for minutes on the pitch they’ll not receive, Kewell’s body language is less positive after his side go 2-0 down. His shoulders slump and despite the cold, he takes off his puffer jacket. He does, though, remains sporting to the end and fist pumps players from both teams as they leave the field.
In the socially-distanced press seats, journalists file their copy or speak their words into microphones and they bring other games into play.
“Two wins in ten for the [Bolton] Wanderers, where do they go from here?” asks the presenter from BBC Radio Manchester. “Five unbeaten for Rochdale after beating Bristol Rovers. A magnificent victory there … while Stockport couldn’t find a way past Weymouth losing 2-1.” There’s a deep, beautiful depth to English football, an unpredictability which allows Salford and Oldham to rise so high and fall so low. Positions are never a given, never permanent.
After ten minutes, both managers appear. They’re more open to communicating with the media than their players, they’ve been in the game long enough to know the game.
Kewell is disappointed at the defeat, thinks his side controlled large parts of the game, failed to take their chances and questioned some of the refereeing decisions. This is the 42-year-old’s fourth job as a manager after spells at Watford’s youth team, Crawley Town, Notts County and now Oldham. Is he enjoying it?
“Love it,” he says, smiling. “Love the stress, the roller-coaster ride and being able to put together a plan for your team. It’s like a game of chess where you move the pieces, but it hurts more as a manager when you don’t win because they are your ideas.
"You have to go through pain barriers. I will continue to give everything to this beautiful game because it’s such a pleasure to be a part of. I want to create my own identity as a coach, just as I did as a player."
He played in front of 40,000 with Leeds and Liverpool, now football is happening without fans. “Absolutely shocking,” is his reaction. “When I played I didn’t concentrate on the fans because it’s all about your football, but as a manager you really notice. I’d like to see fans back in. Players need it.”
The story is with Scholes and his future. Does he enjoy being a manager? "It's like being a player," he tells The National. "Some days you do – if it's something you have been working on the training ground and it comes off then you're satisfied and it feels like a reward.
"Then there are days where you go home and question yourself and say ‘Was I good enough today?’ All in all, it’s all about what happens in the game.”
