Salford City face up to a local derby with a difference on Saturday when they make the short trip from Moor Lane to the Etihad Stadium when they face Premier League champions Manchester City in the FA Cup third round.
It’s a little over nine years since Salford’s first appearance in the competition proper, when they stunned Notts County 2-0 in round one.
The Ammies were in English football’s seventh tier at that point and bridged a 59-place gap in the league pyramid thanks to goals from Danny Webber and Richie Allen.
Last month, Salford cruised to a 3-0 win over the same opponents, taking them down as equals in League Two.
The men largely responsible for this dizzying rise are Manchester United heroes, lending a delicious narrative flourish to the David and Goliath tussle set to unfold on the blue side of town.
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Who are the Class of ’92?
The Class of ’92 is the collective label given to the Manchester United players who graduated from the club’s 1992 FA Youth Cup winning team to form the nucleus of the side that dominated English football under Sir Alex Ferguson in the mid-to-late 1990s and early 2000s.
David Beckham, Nicky Butt, Gary Neville and Paul Scholes all began their trainee contracts at United under the watchful eye of esteemed youth coach Eric Harrison on the same day, July 8, 1991. Ryan Giggs was already in the building and had first-team experience under his belt.
The Wales winger, who would go on to become United’s all-time record appearance maker, captained the young Red Devils to a 3-2 win over Crystal Palace at Old Trafford, closing out a 6-3 aggregate victory.
Gary Neville’s younger brother Phil is also often remembered within the Class of ’92 catch-all despite the fact he captained United to FA Youth Cup success in 1995.
That summer, Ferguson sold experienced first-team stars Paul Ince and Andrei Kanchelskis and placed his faith in his star youth team graduates.
They repaid his faith with a stunning come-from-behind league title triumph at the expense of Newcastle United and retained the Premier League trophy the following season.
Beckham, Giggs, Scholes, Butt and the Neville brothers were all integral parts of United’s historic treble-winning season in 1998/99.
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Do the Class of ’92 own Salford City?
In March 2014, the Football Association and Northern Premier League approved a takeover of Salford by the Project 92 Consortium. This amounted to Giggs, Butt, Scholes and both Nevilles taking 10% stakes in the club.
In September of that year, Singaporean businessman and Gary Neville’s business partner Peter Lim bought a 50% stake. In 2019, Beckham bought 10% of Lim’s shares, giving all six of the banner Class of ’92 stars a stake in Salford.
Neville et al caused early controversy when it was decided Salford would ditch their traditional tangerine kits — colours they adopted after borrowing kits from Blackpool during a period of financial difficulties — and wear red shirts with white shorts and black trim akin to Manchester United.
Salford were in NPL Division One North at the time, the eighth tier of English football. A mid-season coaching change brought in managerial duo Anthony Johnson and Bernard Morley, who inspired promotion and became reality TV stars in the process as BBC cameras tracked the team’s progress in the documentary series Class of 92: Out of Their League.
The Ammies won the NPL Premier Division playoffs the following season and won the National League North title in 2017/18. Under former Preston North End and Burnley defender Graham Alexander, Salford were promoted to the Football League in 2019 thanks to a 3-0 National League playoff final win over AFC Fylde at Wembley.
Gary Neville and the board have cycled through four managers since then, to much external mirth, but have settled on former MK Dons boss Karl Robinson. This alliance has been fruitful and they head to the Etihad Stadium sitting in the League Two promotion places.
