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Rob Draper has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this Work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

This book is published to accompany the television series entitled Class of 92 first broadcast on BBC One in 2015. Class of 92 is an Electric Ray production.

PART 1

Gary:

It all came together on a train coming back from London. Ryan and I were talking about what we wanted to do after retirement. Ryan was still playing at the time in his last season. I’d been doing my media work for two years. We wanted to be involved with football but at times we despaired about the short-term nature of coaching or managing. We want to give something back to young people but, in my view, there’s no point having a football academy if the kids haven’t got anywhere to go when they’re 16.

So it was during that conversation that we came up with the idea of buying a football club. It seemed outlandish but we were already involved in our hotel businesses with Peter Lim, so we could raise the finance. We started talking about Football League clubs and then wondered whether it might be better to start in the non-league and see if we could work our way into the Football League through the pyramid. Obviously we didn’t know much about non-league football at that stage and I don’t think we had appreciated quite how hard that would be.

Because of Ryan’s connections in Salford he could quickly get us in contact with people at Salford City, and everything that has happened in the last two years at the club really started from that conversation we had on the Virgin Pendolino from Euston.

There have of course been some difficult periods and stressful moments. But I can honestly say that, other than time spent with my family, it’s when I’m at Salford’s ground, Moor Lane, leaning against the terrace bar at the far side of the ground watching the team, that I feel happiest and most complete. Apart from the fact there is an excitement about where we might be able to take the club, it is that feeling of re-connecting with football in its purest form.

In fact, the only time I ever felt, ‘Why did we buy a football club?’ was just before the contracts had been signed. It was March 2014 and Salford had a home game against Curzon Ashton. It was one of those lovely, sunny, spring afternoons. I was still full of optimism and energy at that stage and Ryan, Nicky, Paul and myself all went down to Moor Lane.

We had produced a document. I suppose you could call it almost like a project plan really, or a business plan. We all read the document, we all bought into it, we all invested the money into it and then went to watch the game.

And suddenly you realised that the reality didn’t quite match up to the document! It was a million miles away to be honest. Everyone just kept saying to us, ‘Do you realise just how difficult non-league football is?’ We were like: ‘Yeah, we know how difficult football is. It’s tough, whether you’re the owner, the manager, the players or anything.’ But we didn’t know.

That day I was stood behind the far goal with the lads, thinking, ‘Shit! Lads, I’m not quite sure what we’ve got into here.’ Salford got beat 2-0. They were obviously a bad team as they hadn’t had a significant budget up to that point. They were still 12^th in the league and Curzon were very good.

I remember thinking, ‘Is this going to work? Are we really going to turn this club into something bigger?’ There were 174 people there, though it felt like less. It was Moor Lane in its rawest form. You could hear a pin drop. You could hear every voice from everywhere and you’re thinking, ‘How are we going to get to the Football League? This is nowhere near.’

That was the only moment that I can remember thinking, ‘Is this the right thing?’ Once we’d got it and we started going down and we found our hill where we stand and we started to build a camaraderie with the people around us and the crowd started to grow and the team started to win and the players started to get more excited and the crowds went up to 200, 300, then you think, ‘Oh, it’s more people here now and it’s more enjoyable.’ Now attendance is up to 700 or 800 and we get 2,000 for certain games, and you’re thinking, ‘Right. Now you can see the potential of Salford.’

And that’s what has always driven us. We wanted to be part of something for the long term. We wanted to be in charge, so that no owner or chief executive could say, ‘That’s you done, you’re sacked.’ And we wanted it to inspire and excite people, the community around us. But we also had an ambition of making the Football League, and we wanted to get there as quickly as possible. We planned to get there in eight to ten years, which was aggressive, to be honest. But that’s what other clubs which have made similar journeys have achieved.

There is still plenty of work to be done. We’re still a long way from the Football League. Just as importantly, we haven’t yet set up our academy, but hope to do so in the next few years. Providing opportunities to young people, especially in the city of Salford, is a big part of why we’ve done this. When we bought the club, the initial idea came out of setting up an academy. I suppose, two years in, there is a regret that we’ve been so completely embroiled in first-team activity. That said, there is substantial work going on behind the scenes.

But despite all that, we have had what you might call an eventful and exhilarating couple of years. Most of the time, it’s been enjoyable as well.

Most of the time.

1 MARCH 2016

DARLINGTON 3, SALFORD CITY 2

There is an unhealthy quietness in the dressing room. Heads are down and eyes are averting gazes. Joint team manager Anthony Johnson stands in the centre.

No-one speaks. Another ten, fifteen seconds pass and still silence. Then Johnson starts.

A defender, Steve Howson, breaks the silence. ‘One in front, one behind, one on the edge.’

‘There you go. Do you understand a bit of accountability? Second ball, on the edge, the kid’s come in and fucking scored … The third one. Talk to me about that.’

‘It was my man. I thought the ball was gone,’ says Evan Gumbs, another defender.

‘That’s accountability,’ Johnson replies. ‘My man, my man, my man. That’s great. You’ve got big balls to come in and admit it. Does it change anything? It doesn’t change nothing.’

It’s been an awful night for Salford City. They are in a scramble to ensure they make the play-offs in the Evo-Stik Northern Premier League. Darlington are not just one of their main rivals; they have somehow become the most despised of opponents in the past two years since the two teams came up from the Evo-Stik First Division North together.

Johnson is hated here. He has been verbally abused by a teenage Darlington fan for large sections of the game and at the end another fan offered to fight him; he had to be pulled away. Just two weeks ago they played Darlington at home and were 3-1 up after 62 minutes; they lost 4-3. Tonight seemed better. Despite falling behind, they went 2-1 up after 83 minutes but they lost 3-2.

‘I’ve said it before – and this isn’t about belittling anybody by the way – and I mean this: have some fucking balls about you. Do you understand why I say you’re mentally weak now? Has the penny dropped or not? Or do you still not agree with me? Come at me.’

‘You agree that we’re not strong enough? Anyone else or is it just Howson?’

Another voice from the far side of the dressing room appears to agree with a simple ‘Yeah’.

Johnson looks to Danny Webber, his most experienced player, ex-Manchester United with a full professional career behind him, a figure with status in this environment.

‘Not mentally strong enough. To get yourself back into the game like you did … Listen, second half we were dog shit. We didn’t play as well as we did in the first half. But you grabbed yourself back into a game of football.

‘They score the second goal and there’s one thing that is going to happen. I turned to Bern,’ he explains, referring to his co-manager Bernard Morley, ‘and I said: “Bern. It’s going to happen again.” Not because of individual people holding their hands up. But because of the unit. The fucking unit. You ain’t strong enough. You ain’t strong enough to take instructions, you ain’t strong enough to apply the instructions. You run around at times, boys, like fucking headless chickens.’

He turns to Howson again whom he will exonerate. ‘Howson, you’ve had a worldy of a game by the way. You take some shit.’

Now he turns to the other central defender, Andy Dawson, who has come off with 14 minutes left due to a bruising injury.

‘Daws. When you come off we fall to pieces. All fair enough, isn’t it? Not because we’ve had to put Lynchey in there,’ he says, referring to captain Chris Lynch. ‘Fucking great game at right-back. Hally’ – he looks at Steve O’Halloran – ‘great game at left-back. You know what?’, he continues turning his attention to goalkeeper Jay Lynch; ‘Lynchey has made a couple of great punches, great saves. Defensively I can’t ask for any more. I cannot ask for you to give me any more. But the rest of you boys …’

The defence is being exonerated, so others feel threatened. Gary Stopforth, the midfielder, interjects, tentatively at first. ‘We conceded three goals …’ he points out.

‘Shut the fuck up!’ he screams. ‘If it’s down to him, if it’s down to him’ – Johnson is pointing at Howson now, shouting even louder still – ‘I come at him. If it’s him, he takes the shit. It is a team thing. What I’m addressing here is that we’ve conceded three goals.

‘They’re the best side I’ve ever seen at pumping the ball and then recycling it. And I hate words like that. But picking the ball up and doing it again; setting it up, picking the ball up and doing it again. They’re the best team I’ve seen at it. They’re excellent at it. Whether you like it or not, they’re good at it.

‘But as a defensive unit, as a back fucking four’ – Johnson is thumping his fist into the palm of his other hand now – ‘we win every first ball. And the majority of second, to a point. But you switch off. All over, you switch off. Time and time again. They don’t. We huffed and puffed. They don’t fucking switch off. Every time they got a free-kick deep in their own half, how many bodies did they send up? Nearly everyone, yeah?

‘At 2-2 they were going for the win, weren’t they? They got back in the game and got back for the win. When the ball came out and we cleared it on the first or second balls, it’s come back on us, because we didn’t get under the ball.

‘It’s happening too fucking often, boys, to keep wiping the slate clean and saying, “Let’s go again. Let’s go again. Let’s go again.”

‘I’m not saying this because they’ve come from behind, but it’s the same as two weeks ago when I’ve gone, “What has just happened?”

‘And the only thing I’ll say, and I ain’t putting blame, it’s when the subs come off, we fell to pieces. That can be my only explanation. I might be wrong. That’s not because of the subs that went on. But because of the subs that came off, we fell to pieces. It’s the only explanation, boys. It can be my only explanation to it.’

Johnson is now addressing the players who came on during the game. ‘Are you given enough extra instructions when you go on? Are you given enough instructions by the players when you go on? “Go there, do this.” You’re not. You’re fucking not. We do it. We do our bit,’ he says, referring to himself and Morley.

‘We can’t keep coming in and saying, “Right. We’ll put it right next time.” Honest, boys. Once is fucking criminal. Not against these in general. To be winning 3-1 and to get beat in the last few minutes again and then to do it the second time, the spotlight is now on me and him. And rightly so by the way. I take that. I’ve told you before I’ll take that.

‘Because I’ll go out of here’ – and here Johnson points to his loyal members of staff, coaches Glenn Moses and Craig Dootson, physio Val McCarthy and kit man Paul Rushton – ‘and he’ll blow smoke up my arse, and he’ll blow smoke up my arse and he’ll blow smoke up my arse and say: “Well, there’s only so much you can do.”

‘It doesn’t matter. That’s our job. To make sure you lot apply what we train you and ask you to do. That’s our job. The owners won’t keep saying: “Unlucky, it’s the lads. Unlucky.” They won’t. Once or twice, it’s the lads. Three, four, five times it’s fucking me and him.

‘And they are right. Because we’re trusting individuals and a team and it isn’t working. I ain’t questioning anybody’s desire, your work rate or heart. I’m not questioning any of that, I’m not. I can see you’re gutted. I can see people are hurting. And we’ve got two hours now on a coach together and it’s going to be fucking awful. But this is me. I think that’s come to an end now. Enough chances have been given. By the football club to us and down the ladder from us to you. Simple as. That simple.

‘There’s no question of what people are doing or not motivating or anything like that. It’s not good enough. It’s just not good enough. That is the bottom line of things. The fucking bottom line.

‘I’ve told you before. People want to see you fail. Not you personally, not you personally, not you. But that badge you wear, because of who the owners are. They want to see you fail. They want to beat you so fucking bad. And you haven’t got the mental capacity, the mental strength, or the balls to stand up against it.’

‘That’s it. It’s a long drive home. Let’s get ready. I’m not going to stand here all night talking, boys. Unless you’ve got something to say yourselves. But I think I’ve covered it.’

It’s just after midnight at Tebay Services, high on Shap Fell on the edge of the Lake District, and most of the team are unimpressed by the lack of fast-food outlets. ‘This is when football is the worst,’ says Gareth Seddon, the striker, who has only played 20 minutes at Darlington, coming on as a sub. He couldn’t make a meaningful impression on the game.

Tebay Services is famous for its home-made, organic farm produce. Two ducks waddle across the entrance to the foyer. It’s a proper working farm as well as a service station, though it’s not receiving much love from Salford City FC after their last-minute 3-2 defeat at Darlington. There’s still 85 miles to home. Salford City’s season has been faltering for a while. Winning the title in the Evo-Stik Northern League Premier Division, which was the club’s goal at the start of the season, is a long way off. Promotion to the National League North, the next tier of non-league football, is still possible if they can finish in the top five. Teams placed between second and fifth play off in a mini cup competition for one extra promotion place. Promotion is what is expected from the owners of the club, Gary Neville, Ryan Giggs, Phil Neville, Paul Scholes, Nicky Butt and Singaporean businessman Peter Lim.

On top of Shap Fell, the temperature is dropping below freezing as the players make their way across the forecourt to get their food. ‘It’s times like these you wonder why you’re not retired,’ says Seddon. It hasn’t been a good night. They have only won five of their last 12 games and have lost five. They look as though they will slip out of the play-off places.

The defeat was bad enough. The dressing-room row was as fraught as it has been all season. Then, as the players board the coach, shovelling down slices of post-match lasagne provided by Darlington, there is the unkindest cut of all.

‘Have you heard the bad news?’ the coach driver, Ian Corrie, says. ‘The A1 is shut. We’ll have to go back home cross-country.’ No-one has the energy to react verbally. An accident has closed the motorway home, so now the coach will snake across the Northumbria Hills to the Lake District and pick up the M6, turning a two-hour journey into a three-hour trek. Most of the players will be starting work before 9am the next day. They won’t be home until 2am at the earliest.

On the coach the tap for boiling water isn’t working either, so there’s not even any tea or coffee to numb the pain. The inside lights are turned off. Outside, there is just the darkness of the Northumbria Hills. The coach is stuck behind an articulated lorry, not daring to pass on the single carriageway. The conversation is limited. The stereo, usually a loud feature of Salford City coach trips, is turned off.

A subdued conversation starts up between a couple of players. It is the standard post-match analysis. ‘Why didn’t we pick him up? Why didn’t we finish that chance?’ It’s a long way to come to lose 3-2. The card game starts at the back of the coach. The coach crawls through Barnard Castle, a picturesque small town in Durham, delightful on a summer afternoon for tea; less so close to midnight with 157 miles to home. The first quiet laughs are heard from the card game. Kit man Paul Rushton brings up a couple of beers Johnson has ordered.

Tebay Services turns out better than expected. There was no Burger King or KFC but there were home-made beef pies and hummus, and falafel with a tomato-and-garlic-chutney sandwich from the farm shop. Back on the coach, the preconceived consensus that these services were ‘shit’ has been altered to take account of the quality of the food.

It’s possible that any food would have done the trick, yet the change in mood is evident once the team have been fed. The conversations are louder now. It’s past midnight but the steak pies seemed to have done the trick. No-one is trying to sleep. Instead most of the team is gathered round the table towards the back of the coach where Johnson, Gareth Seddon, Danny Webber and Jordan Hulme are sitting.

Webber has an online account on a roulette website. Many of the payers are pitching in, putting in money for one spin of the wheel on Webber’s smart phone and Seddon is taking down who has bet on which number. The excitement is growing, anticipation heightened and spirits are good.

None of the numbers come up – groans all round and a discussion as to why they didn’t just put it all on red. ‘I just did what you said!’ comes the reply. But everyone is smiling now. The abuse is good natured, no longer aggressive. Something has changed. The team has recovered its sense of identity over a spin of the wheel on a roulette wheel. It will still be 1.37am when the coach pulls up outside Old Trafford, where the players’ cars are parked, but not many are sleeping. Instead Richie Allen is holding court with a monologue of his nights out on the back row of the coach and everyone is laughing. Most won’t be home until 2.30am. Glenn Moses will get just a few hours sleep because he has a 5am start for work. Howson has texted his boss to say he will be in at 8am. No-one is getting much sleep tonight, but no-one minds as much now.

Gary:

I was offered the Valencia job by the club’s owner Peter Lim at the end of November 2015. Peter’s obviously a very successful global businessman who has backed us in our hotel ventures in Manchester and also become a co-owner of Salford City. He owns 50 per cent of the club. Valencia were going through quite a tough time and they wanted me to give it a go. Phil was already there as a coach, having joined in the summer before, so there was some logic to it. But I also had some family reasons to be here in Manchester. And I pointed out to Peter that I was running projects on his behalf in Manchester and it might prove something of a distraction! But in the end I felt it was an opportunity to which I couldn’t say no. There was so much to learn. It was, in theory, only for six months. Who knows what it might develop into? So eventually I decided that I would go for it.

At the time I wasn’t worried to be leaving Salford behind. In theory it should make no difference. We’re not owners who run the club, day in, day out. I’d be in touch with the chairman Karen Baird and we’d speak regularly. I know people say I’m a control freak but I’m really not. It’s the committee that was there when we took the club over, they run it. I only get involved in bigger decision or significant expenditure. We always knew when we bought the club there would be periods when a couple of us might have to step back and the others come to the fore. Because there are five of us, we have that flexibility. When one has a job which ties him down, another will ensure Salford is getting the right amount of attention. Still, football takes you unawares. I didn’t expect to be in Valencia. When we first bought the club, Ryan probably didn’t expect that he would be locked down for two years as assistant manager of Manchester United; Nicky the same, as United’s Head of Academy. We probably never envisaged that Paul would be one of the most active in watching games and that Phil would disappear to Spain. There was a period last year for four months where there was just Scholesy on the ground.

But when I left the team in December they were going well. We had just had an amazing FA Cup game which had energised everyone at the club. And we were holding our own in the league. We knew from talking to people in non-league circles that it is very often the case that when you have a good cup run as a non-league team, your league form suffers. Very few teams manage a cup run and a promotion in the same season, for example. They have a big dip after they go out of the FA Cup, when all the excitement and the cameras have gone. So we were a little wary of that. When we first took over the club and when we first met our managers, Bernard and Anthony, we made it clear that the league was the priority. Cups were a bonus. But our goal was to get up and through the leagues and into the Football League. So the FA Cup run came as something of a pleasant surprise.

But we knew what might be coming. We knew the winter could be tough. And it was hard being in Valencia through January and February of 2016 and watching the defeats come in. We were in touch but, to be honest, I shut down most communication with people in the UK because Valencia required so much of my attention. Phil and I would be sat on the team bus in Spain following Salford games on Twitter. And though I never despaired, you did at times wonder whether we would make the play-offs. Every season the teams that finish between second and fifth go into a mini cup competition to decide who wins the second promotion place. And making those play-offs became our realistic goal for the season.

There was a particularly bad patch, a couple of weeks at the beginning of February. Funnily enough it was the time we had actually started winning some games at Valencia! But Salford played Darlington, who have become our main rivals, at Moor Lane. And despite being 3-1 up with 28 minutes to play, we lost 4-3. I understand the fall-out from that wasn’t good in the dressing room. And then we went to Ilkeston, a team we should beat, and lost 2-1. It was then I began hearing that a rift was developing between the players and the managers. There were a couple of wins which seemed to steady things and then we had that match away at Darlington. When we went 2-1 up with seven minutes to play in such a big game, there was a sense that everything was turning around for the better. So to lose 3-2 was especially galling. And you could sense it the morning after.

On the morning after the Darlington defeat, Salford City club chairman Karen Baird is having breakfast when the phone call comes. It’s Gary Neville, ringing from Valencia. There is an important issue to be discussed. It’s not last night’s result, however.

Jordan Hulme is the team’s talented winger, 25 years old and outwardly full of confidence. The players have been especially annoyed with a Darlington journalist whom they perceive to be unnecessarily antagonistic. Hulme took the matter in hand, post match, via social media.

On the other end of the line, Gary Neville is continuing in his earnest fashion. ‘It’s not right, Karen,’ he tells her.

After a five-minute conversation, Karen puts the phone down. Hulme is called; the tweet is deleted; an email is sent to the players instructing them on the dos and dont’s of social media.

‘I do get it,’ says Baird later. ‘They’re representing Salford and everything’s a story.’ But Baird herself has some history in this department and had to delete her Twitter account earlier in the year. ‘Gary told me off loads of times for putting things up. Between the stick I was getting from Darlington fans and Gary, I just thought it would be easier to come off it.’

Later, Baird is reflecting on Gary. ‘We do fight. But we get on. I think because we get on we can have a row. He’s the most intense person ever but I like him. He’s dead passionate about everything that he does. He cares as much about it as us, which is nice. And that’s the shame, that he’s gone to Valencia now. But I still have him on the phone or text messages all the time. It’s funny him not being here. I suppose we did it before without him. Before we were making decisions for ourselves and now it’s for him.’

Neville’s phone calls tend to come before 7am. Texts can come in at 5.15am, sometimes earlier when he is an hour ahead on Spanish time. The older Neville brother has a need to be in control. His younger brother Phil and his twin sister Tracey were trying to organise their joint birthday party once. Gary didn’t rate the restaurant they had chosen and suggested another. ‘In the end,’ Phil recalls, ‘I said to Tracey, “We might as well go to the place he’s suggesting. It will just make life easier.”’ Phil says this with a broad smile on his face. No-one knows Gary better.

‘He’s a control freak,’ says his co-owner and close friend Paul Scholes. ‘He’s got to be knowing everything what’s going on, who’s doing this, who’s doing that, what can you be doing. Whereas I just like going to watch the club, really.’

Baird, 45, is learning how to deal with Neville. ‘But it’s hard sometimes,’ she says. ‘Like trying to sign the players. I think Gary thinks: “We’ll get the new players all signed up for next year.” But we don’t know what division we’re going to be in so we can’t get the players for next year.

‘He’ll say to me: “That player you want, which they wanted £20,000 for. He’s coming to the end of his contract so we’ll get him for £5,000 now.” No, Gary. We won’t. It’s Salford. Everyone wants more money. It’s so difficult to do anything. It isn’t just the Class of 92. This year is more difficult because of the FA Cup run and everyone has seen how much money we made. When the managers came in they said, “Karen, we could get people to play for us for £70 a week before. Now they want £500. It is mad.”’

Baird runs an accountancy business. ‘I have 150 staff working here and it’s much easier than managing a football club. It is a lot harder and I think Gary is learning that. I’m sure Gary would normally say “Do this” and it would happen. I think I’ve learnt off them and they’ve learnt off us.’

She first met Gary Neville on Christmas Eve 2013. Rhodri Giggs, Ryan’s brother, used to be manager at Salford City, which meant Giggs, who grew up in Pendlebury, a district of Salford, knew the club president Dave Russell. Giggs approached Russell to tell him that he was interested in investing in the club; Russell told Giggs that he would have to speak to Baird, the new chairman.

‘So Gary phoned me and we ended up meeting him on Christmas Eve in George’s Restaurant in Salford.

Ryan:

In my last season of playing for Manchester United, in 2013– 14, Gary and I were having a lot of conversations about football. We were reflecting on the fickleness of the business. The only ones in football who get to choose whether to stay somewhere for the long term are the owners.

Gary was working for Sky Sports as an analyst, having retired in 2011. But if you’re coaching or managing, it is always short term and you’re always at the whim of an owner. We had spoken about setting up an academy for young players from the Greater Manchester area to give them some of the opportunities we had had. We had been to London for a business meeting and on the train back, Gary said: ‘Look, I don’t know how long you’re going to go on for, but this idea of doing an academy and doing something for young people in the local area isn’t enough. Everyone wants to do that when they’ve finished playing football. But soccer skills courses are like babysitting services for the rich. Academies don’t work unless you’ve got somewhere for them to go on to.’ So as we were talking we came up with the idea of buying or taking over a local football club, but one that’s quite low down and growing it from its roots, to give people a chance. And then to set up an academy alongside it for local people and local players.

We wanted something that we could more or less guarantee we would still be doing in 25 years’ time. And that’s how it started really. Then we got right down to the details and looking at where we could do this? We talked about clubs at a higher level and even League Two, but I mentioned Salford as a possibility, though at that stage we didn’t have a clue about it. I knew a couple of the people on the committee at the club and I’ve known Dave Russell, the president, for years. My brother, Rhodri, had played there and coached there for a bit.

We made a phone call on the train and got to speak to Dave, and we met him at the ground. Dave told us that Karen had taken over as chairman and that’s how we ended up meeting her in the restaurant I co-own, George’s, on Christmas Eve in 2013. Salford seemed ideal because of the ties the five of us have to the area. Gary and Phil grew up in Bury, Paul in Middleton and Nicky in Gorton, but we had all trained at United’s old training ground, The Cliff, in Salford.

When Baird met Giggs and Gary Neville, she was still relatively new to her job. She had only taken over a year before in the summer of 2012 when the board had elected her chairman. ‘The way the Class of 92 put it originally, I read it that they’d come in and take over and we’d all go,’ she recalls. ‘And that would be it. And I thought: “Oh. I’m enjoying it now.” I’d only been doing it a year or so and I didn’t feel ready to give it up. But you have to do what is best for the club. It was a bit of a shock really.’

Baird had only become properly involved in the club 18 months before the meeting with Giggs and Neville. She knew the former chairman, Darren Quick, who drank, like her, at The Barton Arms in Salford, as did the current president Dave Russell, who was president when Baird took over. The club had fallen behind in their accounts and the pair knew Baird ran an accountancy business. She got them up to date and before she knew it she was the club treasurer. Only then did she realise what she had taken on.

‘I was sat there at the committee meeting and there was twenty men sat there in their fifties just talking all over each other, arguing and talking, and I thought: “I must be mad!” In October 2012 I joined and Darren decided in January that he was stepping down at the end of the season, because of his work commitments. All of them at some point asked me if I would do it, I imagine because no one else wanted the responsibility and because I just made decisions and got on with things.

‘At one of the meetings I was at, there was an issue over 20 stolen footballs and there was two hours of “What are we going to do?” And I was just like: “Can we just pay for the balls and move on?”’

Ryan:

Looking from the outside, Karen probably didn’t know what to expect from us. But the last thing we wanted to do was make lots of changes. Having spoken to her and having seen how the club was being run we were pleasantly surprised. The club was actually making money, which was just unbelievable for a non-league football club. So Karen was doing a great job and we could see how passionate she was about the club and how she enjoyed it. It was perfect for us because obviously we were willing to give her more tools and she can use our experience with football. But also we need to use the experience of the committee and managers in non-league football, because we have none.

One of the main things for us was to build trust with the committee. I would imagine, when we’re coming in, the thought would have been: ‘What are they going do with us? What are they going do to our club?’ And we had to say: ‘Look, our intention in the first couple of years is that we’re just going let it run. We will improve the team budget. We will put some money in. We will try to improve the image of the club and the fan base, just through awareness. But we won’t be doing an awful lot.’

The club committee are all volunteers. We don’t pay them anything. They’re incredible and it’s their club. They do run that club. There are things we have to get used to which are alien to us, for example, the turnover of players. Players will just move for the money, so if someone offers £20 more a game, they go. It’s totally understandable when all deals are so short term. We needed to adapt to that. And obviously for us, being a footballer was our main job. We were dedicated to it. Most of these lads, it’s not their main form of income. It’s just an extra way of earning some money, so it wasn’t their priority really. Some lads would book holidays for when we’d got a game or pre-season, or they didn’t want to go to training, so we just had to get our head round that.

That said, I think we have adapted quite quickly. We’re not stupid and we realised that it can’t be like a professional club. Lads are coming straight from work, sometimes they can’t make training because of traffic or they’ve got a job somewhere else and they can’t afford to lose those jobs, so you have to just try and adapt as best you can whilst moving the club in the right direction. By no means do we put up with anything we think is unreasonably lax, but also we need to be a bit understanding as well. It’s not the Premier League.

Instead of just throwing money at it we’ve tried to bring little bits of professionalism around the edges. Things like making sure there are good physios always around. Even the kit can make a difference; you feel a million dollars in a good kit. We also have the partnership with the University of Salford media department for filming games so they can be analysed. So we’re giving the club a bit of that professional vibe. It’s not so much changing everything straightaway; it’s about evolving and changing the mentality a little bit so that it becomes: ‘Every game we need to win.’

What’s important to us is that we improve the team, that we move up the league and we improve the facilities for the fans, for the people who come and watch the games. It’s important that we set up an academy and that we grow our own players. It’s important that we try to make the club sustainable, so we have to try and commercialise it in some way. We have to improve the fan base and try and get local people to support Salford. If we can get just over 5 per cent of the population of Salford to come to watch us in the next ten years, that would be around 15,000. That’s our aim. Can we get five per cent of Salford to support us? We’re not going to beg them, though. Ultimately we believe that if we provide good facilities and exciting football, we keep ticket prices low – it’s still £7 and £1 for a junior – they will come and hopefully we’ll get good crowds. After the FA Cup ties, the area was buzzing. I had people come up to me who wouldn’t know me and they would be talking about Salford; or people who didn’t know about football and they were really interested in Salford City and wanted to ask me more.

Baird is the only woman on the board of Salford City but she’s no feminist. ‘Not at all!’ she says, apparently offended. ‘I’d say I’m probably the opposite. I just get on with it. I don’t think: “I’m a woman.” It doesn’t even cross my mind.

‘I think people can make an issue of it, can’t they? It’s like these meetings for women in business. I’m just like “get on with it”.

‘When I first started in accountancy, I was the only one in audit in Warrington. I’ve always been surrounded by men, at work and everything.’

Baird remembers trying to drum up support for the club when she took over as chairman. Attendances would hover around the 100 mark; 150 on a good day. She traipsed around Salford delivering fliers to 3,000 homes. It made no difference. Attendances remained stubbornly low. At Christmas, once promotion was ruled out, the club tended to let the best players go, because they couldn’t afford them. ‘It’s just a circle of surviving and the committee were getting older. The fact that someone would come in and take all that off you and you’ve not got the issue of how we are going to pay the wages this week.’

Since the Class of 92 took over, Baird has been their main go–between. ‘The Class of 92 haven’t come in with their size nines. We’re still here doing everything that we did. Everything is the same and people have seen that. They’ve not come in and ridden roughshod over everything. And there is not one single club which would have turned this deal away.’ The most controversial change they made for their first season, 2014–15, was to change the shirt colours from traditional tangerine to red, as they played in at Manchester United. But Baird insists most fans ultimately were able to rationalise the switch.

‘What if I had said to the fans: “There are some investors who have come in and they wanted to change the colour but we turned them away and they’ve gone and set up with Trafford down the road, are you happy with that?” You can’t have it all ways, can you?’

The club has changed, though. They never had a social media policy for the players before the takeover.

Phil:

We were in such a strong position early on in the 2015–2016 season, and then we went through a sticky patch. You’re constantly looking at the table, figuring out, ‘Right, can we make it, can we go up? Are we now just settling in the playoffs?’ It was definitely a nervous time. There were some tough times. I don’t know if it was the knock-on from the FA Cup, but there were a few games where we were in the lead and ended up losing. If you’re on the other side of that, when you keep losing games when you’ve got to win them, it’s hard. When you’re winning, you always believe that you will, and it’s not a nice feeling when it’s the other way round. When you’re 2-1 up, at the back of your mind you’re thinking, they scored, they might score again, and your confidence can be really fragile. When you get bad results you do doubt yourself, as a manager, as a coach. But you just have to work hard to get through those sticky moments.

You have to recognise when you’re not doing well and what you’re going to do about it, not only the managers but the owners as well. That’s when they need our support. You have to trust the managers, like the managers trust the players. It’s not easy, especially when you’ve had a bad run of games. You want to do something but sometimes the answer is not to do anything at all and just let them get on with it. You hire managers because they can do the job, and you have to trust them. You can help them but more often than not you can’t do a lot. You just hope they’ll get the results, and things will turn around.

8 MARCH 2016

SALFORD CITY 2, WORKINGTON 2, HALF-TIME

This should have been easy. Salford were 2-0 up after 13 minutes and looking comfortable against Workington, another rival for the play-off places. But they’ve contrived to come in at half-time 2-2. Captain Chris Lynch has just burst through the door into the Portakabin. The rest of the team are quiet, a little ashamed possibly, and settle down in their seats in the makeshift dressing room.

‘Tuesday night games, boys, playing against your Workingtons, against your Darlingtons, and you go 2-0 up after 15 minutes, the game plan off to a T. Off to a T. They didn’t look like they wanted to be here, did they? Change of formation, and they kill us. It’s down to individual errors. It’s alright pointing the finger at him’ – he is looking at left-back Steve O’Halloran – ‘for giving a stupid fucking foul away, but we still should defend that.’

Now he turns to midfielder Luke Clark. ‘It’s alright for him going and getting caught on the half-turn in his own box and giving the ball away. We still should deal with that.’

‘Do you know what, it’s a fucking circus! People have a go at us and they score. I don’t feel sorry for you, I don’t. We scored two shitty goals, didn’t we? They’ll be sat in there saying: “Two shit goals they scored.” It were. Doesn’t matter how you score ’em. They were shitty but they weren’t errors.

‘He’s right,’ he says, referring to Chris Lynch’s exasperation as he came in, ‘We don’t learn. We don’t fucking learn. And it’s all over the pitch, by the way, it’s not just defensively. It’s all over the pitch.’

He turns to forward Jordan Hulme. ‘Jordan: five, ten times you’ve had grass in front of you. But you’re just not on the same wavelength that you were Saturday. It’s one good game and one bad game.’

He now speaks to John Johnston, the winger. ‘JJ. You were the star on Saturday. We wanted to give you the ball every time. Tonight you’re sulking. You’re sulking. People are giving you information and you’re going, “Fuck it”. What’s up with you? If you don’t agree with it, leave it until half-time, we’ll address it. If we hear someone passing you information that isn’t right, we’ll fuck them. Not you. But the information is right what we’re giving you.’

‘Not on that occasion! Not on that occasion where Gaz passed you information. You didn’t take it on board. Stop nit picking!

‘And it is shit. Because our concentration levels slip again. They’re not a good side, are they? They’re not a great side. It’s not like: “Fuck me, second against third, the passing’s great.” Four shit goals. Four goals and he’s banging his head against the fucking wall and so I am because you’re thinking: “2-0 up. If we can just replicate what we did Saturday we’re laughing here.” We just don’t learn. We just don’t fucking learn.’

‘Forget the two goals. I’m watching what we’re doing off the ball. One or two just do things and think: “Right. Jonno’s said I’ve done well or Bernard texted me at home and said ‘Well done’.” And it’s as if you think, “Fuck that. I’m going to go and fuck it up.” That’s what we think. Because what I watch out there, it’s like: “Wow, has he really just done that?”

‘Clarky, that’s not acceptable but that’s him.’ He’s referring to Clark losing the ball on the edge of the area attempting an elaborate turn, which would have looked exquisite had it come off. ‘And you know it’s not acceptable, that, but then what you do, Luke, you go and do that and then five minutes later you do it again.’

He turns away from Clark to address the team now. ‘You have to give him the information and say, “Clukey …”’

He means Clarky but he is talking so quickly in his anger that the names Luke and Clarky have become jumbled. No-one laughs. Morley corrects himself.

‘You have to tell him: “Clarky: do that again, mate, and we’ll fuck you.” He’s done it once. Don’t go and do it again. I know he doesn’t need a bollocking because he knows he’s fucked up. But then he goes and does it again. Tell him. That’s what’s costing us points.

‘The second goal. We’re diving in. Stick, just mark your fucking man, get your arm across him, but we’re not, we’re sliding, going to ground. We don’t learn. Ten games to go, we don’t fucking learn. He said it last week, he’ll say it today and he’ll say it next week. Just do the basics what we’re asking you to do. It’s as simple as that. And if you don’t win then, we can’t turn round and say: “Well, he hasn’t done that and he hasn’t done that.” We got beat by a better side.

‘But we’re not. We’re giving them a head start every week. Every fucking week. Don’t make it difficult for yourselves. We’re a good side with a good bench. Yeah? Get your fucking heads up.’

Morley leaves the dressing room and walks outside. He’s too frustrated to stay. But this isn’t over. Anthony Johnson steps up to have his say.

‘I get to a point, Lynchey,’ he says to Chris Lynch, ‘where I understand why you stop talking to them. I understand, me. I do. Whether I accept it or not is a different matter. But when I shouted at you on Saturday to relax. What did you do?’

‘What did you do on Saturday when I shouted “relax”? Lashed at him. Remember it?’

‘SO FUCKING ROLL ON THREE DAYS,’ Johnson is screaming now at Howson. ‘You’re right in front of me tonight and what am I shouting?’

‘No, no I didn’t,’ says Johnson. There is confusion. Howson is unsure to what he is referring.

‘I said, “Stay on your feet!” Did I say that? You: dive in, and he rolls you. Running back to your own goal and I shout the same thing again: “Steven. Stay on your feet! Stay on your feet!” He’s running towards the corner flag. “Stay on your feet.” What do you do? Because you don’t listen. So come at me with it, whatever the fuck you want, pal, you don’t listen.’

CONTENTS