‘Wherever we go, we are the arch-ene

With ‘Class of 92’ behind them, Salford City have had to develop a thick skin, says Jim White

They love a slogan at Salford City. The walls of the smart, new Peninsula Stadium that has bloomed on the long-established Moor Lane site over the past year are covered in motivational sayings. “Integrity and industry” is written on the wall of the committee room. “You don’t just support a team you belong to it” is there in foot-high letters by the main entrance. And the steps leading from the road down to the stadium are decorated with the

words: “There is no elevator to success, you have to take the stairs.”

Except, for many in lowerleague football, success at Salford is reckoned to have come via a jet-powered elevator. Since the club were taken over by the Class of ’92 in 2014, backed by the money of Singapore billionaire Peter Lim, the upward momentum has been rocket-fuelled. Four promotions in five seasons have propelled a club who had never before played league football into League Two. For many of those who follow less well-heeled clubs there was little romance about such hurried elevation. Instead of praise there has been rancour, the widespread charge that success had been bought, not earned.

“Whether we’ll be the pantomime villain [again], I have no idea,” says the manager, Graham Alexander, of the new season. “Someone has to play that role: in every drama you need a wicked witch. If it’s us again, then it’s us. But it doesn’t affect how we operate. We try to concentrate on doing the right things.”

For those who were associated with Salford long before the Class of ’92 revolution, the idea that everyone hates them is a novel one. Not least because, according to Barbara Gaskill, a member of the club committee who has been serving refreshments at the ground for three decades, back then nobody knew who Salford were.

“When I first started, people didn’t even know the ground existed,” she says. “If you said to a taxi driver take me to Moor Lane he’d look at you like you were daft. All of a sudden everybody knows who we are. And because the [Class of ’92] lads are bringing big money players in, people are thinking, ‘Oh aye, you’re buying your way to the next league’. I understand why people say it’s not the same, there’s been such change. But me, I never thought in my wildest dreams we’d get up into the League.”

Standing on the pristine new pitch in the middle of the smart new stadium, Gaskill, whose lively discussions with Gary Neville over a new tea bar formed a central part of the television documentary that charted the early days of the Salford revolution, says she is having difficulty taking it all in.

“It’s mad this,” she says. “If I could turn back time, I’d like to see one game when there was nobody here in the cold and rain. Just so I could get my head round how far we’ve come. It is amazing. From a little cabin to this.” When Gaskill first came to the club – asked by her husband, who ran the gate – to operate the tea bar, the average crowd was barely 50. This year 1,900 season tickets have been sold; and the stands and terraces built where her cabin used to be now house 5,100 paying supporters. Success has filled the place – though it is a success that has come with a hefty price tag, Not least on the playing side.

Adam Rooney is the club’s most sizeable investment. His arrival from Aberdeen last summer raised eyebrows. From the Scottish Premiership to the National League was some journey – one which, many an observer reckoned, was driven by personal reward.

“I’ve really enjoyed my time here,” says Rooney, who insists he was attracted to Salford by much