Gambler King backing Devils
PAUL KING has put his house on Salford Red Devils. Literally. The 54-year-old security consultant and club director, whose lifelong love look to pull off a huge upset tonight against favourites St Helens at Old Trafford, agreed to secure his family home against the cash-strapped club. It was a process that started from King’s hospital bed, where he lay recovering from an operation following a diagnosis of oesophageal cancer. ‘I wasn’t good,’ he recalls. ‘Most people thought I was going to cark it. The chemo was horrible. Nine weeks of it damn near killed me. I was recovering post-op and keeping tabs on Salford. The coach, Watto (Ian Watson) was taking some flak which I thought wasn’t fair because players were getting sold from under him. ‘I responded saying the board should be getting the criticism and then got a direct message from a board member asking to meet me.’ Before long, King (left) was putting up his house and helping run a club that was on its knees after the previous owner pulled the plug. ‘Two weeks later, when she found out, the wife wasn’t happy,’ he jokes. Salford have not lifted a major honour since 1976 and consistently flirt with relegation. They have never come close to the Grand Final in the Super League. ‘We had a big meeting last year about budgets and the league were trying to be helpful,’ King says. ‘Telling us to aim for 11th out of 12 and just to try to make sure we didn’t get relegated. ‘No way. We’re having a dig. We’ve not done that for 40 years — that’s why we’re s***, that’s why we’re getting crowds of 3,500. But to spend what we wanted on players they needed security — and that’s where the house came in.’ Super League clubs are subject to a salary cap although it is widely recognised that there are ways around it. General consensus is that some of the big clubs spend £3million a year on wages. Salford have spent slightly more than half of that — the second smallest outlay in the league. So things like a place in the Grand Final simply do not happen. The achievement has come on the back of sharp recruitment and gambles on talented players others have failed to get the best out of. Coach Watson explains: ‘We’ve had to go about it a different way because we’re not going to sign the top players. We’ve identified who can make a difference and put an arm around their shoulders.’ So what will it be like for King to see his gamble pay off? ‘I’ll cry like a baby when they come out of the tunnel,’ he says. ‘I’ll be with my mates who are animals when it comes to drinking. We’ll win and then we’ll have a few scoops.’