Doing the 92 is Daniel Storey’s odyssey to every English football league club in a single season. This is club 75/92. The best way to follow his journey and read all of the previous pieces is by subscribing here
In 2012-13, Salford City’s average home attendance was listed as 117. They were in the Northern Premier League Division One, the highest level that they had ever played at, but these were the lowest attendances they had recorded for years. The following year, Salford City changed forever.
The initial six investors were Gary Neville, Nicky Butt, Phil Neville, Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes and Peter Lim, with Lim owning half of the club and the other five sharing the rest. In 2019, David Beckham bought 10 per cent of the club from Lim. In August last year, Gary Neville bought out Lim’s remaining stake.
Salford City is not a popular league club to outsiders; that is undeniable. It is perceived by them as a plastic club because an existing non-league team was taken over and had its badge and kit colour changed.
The initial climb of four promotions in five was probably deemed a little gauche in the circumstances, likely not helped when Scholes stated that the Premier League was Salford’s natural target. Saying that was a PR misstep.
Salford City 1-0 MK Dons (Monday 2 September)
- Game no.: 13/92
- Miles: 220
- Cumulative miles: 2,209
- Total goals seen: 34
- The one thing I’ll remember in May: The lingering sense that you will see a former a current Premier League footballer
Club tribalism clearly plays a part here too. We can never really know, but I’d envisage that had five players with history at different clubs, or all from one less successful club, embarked upon the same project there would be less backlash.
Manchester United ruined our childhoods and now this same class is trying to overtake our clubs again. It sure makes Salford a difficult sell to supporters of, say, Manchester City/Leeds/Liverpool/anyone United beat in the 1990s, i.e. everyone.
So there was no little glee when Salford City got stuck in League Two, currently enduring a sixth season at the same level that looks very likely to produce a seventh. Salford spend more on wages than they make in revenue.
Salford have regularly sacked managers in search of the right answer. Neither of these things are unique or even unusual in the EFL, but people seem to enjoy it happening here.
I understand all that, but I’ve always found the opprobrium a bit forced. Manchester United hurt me in the 1990s too, of course, but is a group of five former international footballers owning their own club really that bad in football in 2025?
They’re not state owners or vampirical venture capitalists. They do at least understand football and are either from the local area or know it well.
So I wanted to come to Salford to tell a different story. I don’t know if that makes me contrary or desperate to play (red) devil’s advocate, ready to challenge the majority view or simply hear a different one.
But you can’t travel to all 92 clubs in the same season and not get called a dick on the internet at least once, can you? So I went to spend some time at the Peninsula Stadium and speak to the people who work there.
Salford is a bigger town, by urban area population, than Preston, Bath and Lincoln. In the 2021 census the wider population was calculated at 270,000, higher than Southampton and Luton.
It is also one of the UK’s most deprived areas, with 30 per cent of children living in poverty. Salford regularly ranks in the top 25 local authorities in the country for income deprivation. That is relevant here.
In 2012, two years before the takeover, Andrew Gordon was living literally down the road from Salford City. Working in early morning radio at the time, he was walking his dog on the pitch after a shift one day when a groundsman came to tell him off.
Panicking, Andrew asked if he could help the club out in any way and was told that they needed a Tannoy announcer. He’s been here ever since.
After the takeover happened, the new owners wanted to recognise the service of volunteers and approached many of them about taking on paid roles. Andrew was one.
He grew up in Salford as a Liverpool fan – “character-building” – and was now, as he says it with a laugh, “working for the people who ruined my childhood”.
Gordon’s official title now is Head of Creative, but his remit is to maintain Salford’s voice within the football club. He uses Salford, its culture, its people and its history to connect with the people of Salford. This is a town, as he says, where people can spot bullshit and inauthenticity from a way off.
“You have clubs that have a ‘way’,” Gordon tells me. “There is no Salford way. But we do have a blank canvas. If you take too long to deliberate over that, you’ll lose your chance. Our idea was to promote Salford’s ideals: everyone is equal, everyone belongs here.
“Comparatively, we’re a corner shop with Asda on one side and Sainsbury’s on the other, two of the world’s biggest clubs as neighbours. Go down 45 minutes down the road and you have two more behemoths of world football. We can’t compete with that. We’re never going to compete with that. So what do we do that is different, that identifies us as where we are from?”
Let’s use an example: at the end of one stand, on a wall of a catering block, is a large mural celebrating Emmeline Pankhurst, silhouettes with flecks of purple and green reflecting the two principal colours of the Suffragette movement. The Pankhurst family have a rich history in Salford. The away shirt this season is in the same colours.
“You might say that it’s just a kit and mural,” Gordon says. “But the idea is that that sends a message to the people of Salford of what can be achieved. These people changed the history of women’s rights forever.
“Do that repeatedly and you create a culture. Never come into this ground and think ‘I’m just somebody from Salford’.”
Salford’s musical heritage plays a strong part here too. In the tunnel, before the players walk out onto the pitch, they see a large photo collage of supporters, particularly the old and the young, with the words “True Faith” written across it.
It is a slogan used by other football clubs too, but New Order were only formed in one town.
The most evocative messages come on the inside door of the home dressing room. There is a full-length black and white image of two children playing football in the street.
It could have been picked from any backstreet in any town in England, but this one was a stone’s throw away. The terraced houses have now been destroyed. The dream remains the same for kids around here.
Next to the door, on the wall, are some of the lyrics from Dirty Old Town, Ewan MacColl, 1949 song that was written about Salford. They were changed after a request from the local council to remove the town’s name from what was interpreted as a downbeat, bleak missive.
But the song, as Andrew says, was supposed to be one of ambition, of making the best of things and getting on with it and of having joys to hold onto.
“That is pretty much the Salford identity in one,” he says. Amid the dirt and the smoky wind, there’s meeting your love and dreaming your dream.
“There’s the adage around here that Salford builds something beautiful and Manchester claims it,” Gordon says.
“So you have MediaCity here, but it becomes Mancunian somehow. The Lowry Outlet gets the same. But Salford City has ‘City’ in the title. It’s us. It gives us an identity, something to shout about.
“And the owners gave Salford, as a city, a platform to be heard. That wouldn’t have happened if we were in the North West Counties League. So every time we shout about Salford and what it means, they facilitated that.”
There is a recognition that life isn’t easy and attracting new football fans to a club is hard too. Although season ticket prices were increased slightly for this season, they are the second cheapest in the 92 (after Fleetwood Town).
Salford City have the third lowest average home attendance after Accrington Stanley and Harrogate. Much of the core support behind the goal is aged under 30.
There is a separate point to make here about the role of a football club. As part of their takeover, Salford City’s new owners also formed Foundation 92, a charity to support the local community in Greater Manchester but with the focus of the work in Salford.
The priority areas are loneliness, homelessness, young people who may be at risk of committing offences and education and employability skills.
It involves the club on matchday. At many grounds, matchday mascots are paid-for privileges, often at exorbitant cost. At Salford, the two spaces are given to deserving individuals in the community.
Two local football clubs get free tickets to each home game and there is a separate scheme with year three classes in local schools for them to get coaching sessions at the club.
“When the takeover happened, there was obviously criticism that this was a vanity project,” Gordon says. “But you have five players who had their football education in this area, had incredibly successful careers and won the biggest trophies and they have invested back in a community. Is that so bad?”
“We have a Football League club, a stadium and facilities like the bar area that just wouldn’t exist in the same way. We can do things for people. It’s something for us to be proud of. When we played Manchester City in the cup this year, Salford City Council were posting about the club. That’s just never really happened before.”
When writing this piece I found an online forum thread on the subject of English football clubs who generate anger, of which Salford City were one. “They’re just a pub team,” was the most prominent accusation. Well, they weren’t; ironically that’s patronising to non-league football. And now they’re a league team.
But for that to be valid criticism, you have to ignore everything that goes along with the expansion. It would be one-eyed of Andrew Gordon or anyone else at Salford to ignore the initial criticism, and nobody I meet does.
It would be one-eyed if we didn’t reflect that this part of the country having a football team paid for by someone else allows good things to happen in the local area.
A provincial football club was taken over by some fairly rich individuals who wanted to make the team as successful as possible and, with it, aimed to provide something tangible for a local community that extends beyond football.
To do that, they have spent a lot of money but found progress in the league to be tough. The other work – community, identity – prevails. That doesn’t make Salford City much different to most other clubs in the present. That’s football in 2025.
Daniel Storey has set himself the goal of visiting all 92 grounds across the Premier League and EFL this season. You can follow his progress via our interactive map and find every article (so far) here
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