MOOR LANE — “Football is life”, reads the white spray paint on a black shipping container outside the Peninsula Stadium. In Salford, an identity is being forged both as a burgeoning working-class city in its own right, and as a corner of a Mancunian sporting empire that stretches far beyond the reaches of Manchester United and City.
A protruding floodlight is the first sign of its football club at the top of a steep hill. To the left, Kersal Moor’s nature reserve, riddled with water bottles and discarded plastic bags. Opposite, the small hut that serves as both ticket office and shop for a club that continues to punch above its weight.
There are few better reminders of that than a trip to the Etihad in the third round of the FA Cup.
“When you’re in the shadows of two of the biggest clubs in world football, Manchester City and Manchester United, within the confines of where we are, we’re always going to be in their shadows,” Salford manager Karl Robinson says.
“The success that they’ve had, the worldwide support they get. But what this game certainly has done, it’s woke a few people up and gone ‘they’re doing ok, they’ve had 10 years, multiple promotions’. We haven’t stood still.”
Once, perceptions here were too often shaped by outsiders. Even the Bard of Salford John Cooper Clarke had few post-punk lyricisms that spoke too kindly of his birthplace. “The rats have all got rickets, they spit through broken teeth”.
The Lads Club, home of The Smiths’ The Queen is Dead cover and factory of two young members of The Hollies, could easily be forgotten or swallowed in the waves of mainland Manchester – where to the east, City’s oil riches have fuelled regeneration.
“Going back and back and back, the borough of Salford was the big deal,” Danny Shepherd of the Salford City Supporters’ Club tells The i Paper.
“Manchester was small fry, and the way things have been redistributed and land has been done with different councils, that’s changed. Salford rugby fans, their fans don’t classify themselves as Manchester. It’s Salford, it’s a different thing.”
Proximity to the elite has its advantages. There are still the overspills of academy spoils; currently, that looks like James Chester, once of United, and Liverpool academy product and Wales international Ben Woodburn. Salford’s growing reputation has also attracted the likes of Tyrese Fornah, on loan from Derby County.
“You don’t see many players like that in League Two,” says Salford fan Dave Farrar.
“He’s a dribbler, he has lots of tricks. He takes the ball from his own box and ends up at the other end. League Two teams don’t know what to do with him, they just end up kicking him. What he’ll do against City who knows, if he puts that on people will go ‘wow’, or he’ll throw the game!”
The club itself is both a breath of life and a reminder of another world. “No one left behind” is a local authority motto aimed at fighting some of the most abject poverty in the country, in an area ranked as the 18th most deprived in England out of 317. At recent estimates, 30 per cent of children live below the poverty line.
The essence of Salford City’s task is about steaming ahead while not losing touch with who they once were.
The “Class of 92” takeover a decade ago, and the arrival of the Beckhams, Nevilles and Giggses, has produced some of the most eye-watering changes in their history. In the main stand, there are still remnants of tangerine, a throwback to official colours before they were submerged in red and black.
The team originally took its name from the Salford Central Mission – linked to the local church who helped to found the club before a move to Moor Lane and a later merger with Anson Villa.
When the clubhouse burnt down in 2009, invaluable mementos that tied fans to that history were lost forever. The memories were irreplaceable but supporters sold turf from the pitch to raise funds for the recovery effort.
It had been the year of the Great Escape, seen then as Salford’s finest hour: survival in the Northern Premier League on the final day, having won one game and taken eight points from their first 26 games. A second win of the season did not come until March.
Robinson, as head coach, looks to be the perfect fit for their latest challenge. Once the EFL’s youngest manager, he has brought unexpected stability wherever he has been.
His first job at MK Dons lasted six years, his most recent with Oxford United five – the former included a 4-0 cup win over Manchester United, the most famous result in the Dons’ short history. Some of his other results against the elite, he jokes, have been “horrific”.
Now, Salford are on a run of six wins and six clean sheets in a row, having ditched the four-man defence that was holding them back and shifting to a back three. Centre-back Curtis Tilt is glowing as he talks of the “belief” Robinson has instilled in this group, while recalling his own life before professional football: “I worked in a quarry. It was just my mum at home.”
Everybody at Salford, much like Robinson, still has a point to prove. On local radio, Farrar points out, they are “always on in the last five minutes, the last team in the pecking order in Manchester”.
“That’s always the difficulty. When the class of 92 took over there was about 100 fans, literally, everybody knew everybody. They’ve brought the fans but it’s a hell of an ask to have two major Premier League teams on your doorstep, plus Bolton, Stockport, Oldham, Rochdale.”
The hunt is currently on for new investment, with a sizeable loss being recorded. “A lot of people – although Wrexham have taken the mantle – thought that Salford was a bottomless pit,” says Shepherd.
“We definitely aren’t anymore. Although Scholes, Giggs, Beckham, Neville are wealthy individuals, it’s in contrast to the reality that people are putting this money in knowing they’re going to lose money… That might not change when you go up to League One.”
In the pre-92 era, part of local legend is the silent short film premiered at a nearby festival and created by then chairman Darren Quick and ex-manager Rhodri Giggs.
“The soul of football,” so its subtitles went, “seeks sanctuary at Salford City FC.”
“Only at Moor Lane can the light still shine on football – once the people’s game. But the danger is not over. The big clubs have sent their monsters to crush the soul of football.”
By the end of the three minutes, high ticket prices, divers, and “foreign debt” have been fought off by Salford’s heroes. “Long live local football. Long live Salford City.”
The film was called The Miracle at Moor Lane. Another is required as they cross the divide to face the champions of England.
from Football - The i Paper https://ift.tt/yh7xDRi
Post a Comment
EmoticonClick to see the code!
To insert emoticon you must added at least one space before the code.