Are Salford City a dirty club or are they smarter than everyone else?

Editorials by Chris has be renamed to Chris' Columns, welcome to the first ever column under the new name...

Chris Dailey

Founder, The Sports Court

Not every club has former world-class players as owners? True

Not every club has a billionaire buy into the club? True

Not every club renovates their stadium and makes a better place for the community to be at? Also true.

I guess Salford City are not like everybody else.

The club from just outside of Manchester is owned by former Premier League stars in Gary Neville, Phil Neville, Paul Scholes, Nicky Butt, Ryan Giggs, David Beckham (all labeled as simply, The Class of 92), and a Singaporean billionaire in Peter Lim.

Salford has received a lot of hate from lower league supporters for ruining the game and spending big to get results.

Even when the Class of 92 took over many Salford City supporters weren’t happy. Fans thought they would come in and ruin the integrity of the club.

Instead, the Class of 92 alongside Peter Lim have built a new ground, taken the club from the 8th division to the football league, and made the club a fully professional operation.

As many English soccer fans make fun of Salford City, commonly referred to as $alford City, I give the owners and their club credit. These owners took over their local teams rather than go after an already large team and they led the club to an unprecedented amount of success.

Although they may have the highest wages in all of League 2, they also have some of the most hands-on owners who care about the club. 

The Class of 92 were the feature of a Netflix documentary that documented their rise to the football league. This documentary was amazing for many American-based English soccer fans as it gave the fans a behind-the-scenes look at the lower leagues of English soccer and it helped spread the game of soccer, specifically lower league soccer, to those who have never see it.

Salford City have done more to grow the ‘non-league’ game than any other team they’ve ever played. Despite their rival fans saying they brought their way to the top, which is true, they also helped tens if not hundreds of thousands of people who have never seen non-league soccer finally see non-league soccer.

A locally based club with locally-based legends, Salford City is truly a fantastic club and is perhaps the most misunderstood club not just in all of England, but the world.

pictures via https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2015/10/30/01/2DECC59200000578-0-image-a-25_1446168320376.jpg  and https://i2-prod.devonlive.com/sport/article2870324.ece/ALTERNATES/s1200c/0_SalfordCity.jpg