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Salford City are hoping to reach the Championship in the next five seasons, but their fortunes could have been far different if not for a certain Manchester United legend.
Salford City have risen to League Two status over recent seasons after earning four promotions in five seasons to reach the Football League in 2019.
In May, David Beckham and Gary Neville took over Salford as part of a new consortium after buying out the rest of the Class of ’92, which included their former Manchester United teammates Nicky Butt, Paul Scholes, Ryan Giggs, and Phil Neville.
The new Salford ownership group now includes former banker Lord Mervyn Davies and businessman Declan Kelly, as well as the Red Devils’ former right-sided duo.
Following Salford’s stellar start to the fourth tier season under Karl Robinson, optimism is rife for the Ammies, but all was not well over the summer.
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David Beckham admits Salford City were in ‘serious trouble’ before takeover
Beckham and Neville’s new Salford ownership group took over in May following the departure of former majority shareholder Peter Lim in 2024.
Lim’s exit and losses of almost £23m over the last seven seasons left the former Man United stars fearing for the future of Salford, with Beckham admitting that he ‘panicked’ when Neville explained the state of the League Two outfit.
Thankfully, Beckham, Kelly and Lord Davies came to Neville’s rescue with the new consortium of 23 investors.
Regarding the Salford takeover, Beckham told The Athletic: “I very rarely panic but when Gary (Neville) came to me and said ‘OK, this is the situation, we need to find a way of saving the club’, I was concerned.
“I know what it means to him. I know what the people in the club mean to him. I know what the fans mean to him. For him to say, ‘we need to sort this out’, I knew this was something we had to fix.
“It was always going to be a ‘yes’, for many reasons. We were part of a football club that had real values, that looked after people, that looked after their players, looked after their fans. That’s when we knew we needed to make this happen.”
Beckham added: “The group we brought together wanted to invest even more than we expected.
“They sat with Gary, heard about the project and knew exactly where we wanted to take the club.
“That’s when we went from needing, I think the number at the start was $12-14m (£10.4m-£12.2m), and we ended up raising between $30-40m (£26m-£35m).
“When we reached that, Gary got really emotional. That’s what it means to him and it’s the passion you want. If we hadn’t have done it, the club would have been in serious trouble.”
Salford City are contenders for promotion to League One under Karl Robinson
Ornstein adds in The Athletic that an “inaugural board meeting took place on Saturday morning”, with Beckham and an Ammies boardroom delegation attending their first match since the buyout when Salford face Swindon Town.
Ahead of the Swindon clash, Salford sat third in the table under Robinson’s stewardship, with five wins from their opening eight games of the season.
Salford signed Matty Young on loan from Sunderland for the second season in a row during the summer window, and the young Black Cats shot-stopper has continued to impress.
Last time out before the visit of Swindon, Salford beat Shrewsbury 3-1 on the road in an outstanding result for the Ammies.
If Robinson and his Salford squad can continue their stellar start, buoyed by the increased presence of Neville and Beckham, promotion to League One will certainly be on the cards for the Greater Manchester outfit.