Inside Salford City and how controversy-mired Ryan Giggs has become the most influential of Man United's Class of 92... but they're still losing £70k a week 10 years on
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The messages etched on the corridor walls at Salford City’s modest little stadium convey the hope that old-fashioned values and sheer love of a place might bring football success. ‘Hard work, determination and never giving in. We learned our football principles in Salford,’ reads Gary Neville’s declaration. ‘Salford had the ingredients that made me a player,’ states that of Paul Scholes. Such was the ethos of the ‘Class of 92’ – a group of footballers whose collective name encapsulates the notion that an exceptional, young cohort can take on the world, if they’re ambitious enough.
![[The League Two side are known for being owned by the Class of 92 (pictured together in 2016)]](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2025/01/10/21/93975889-14271393-The_League_Two_side_are_known_for_being_owned_by_the_Class_of_92-m-23_1736543599334.jpg)
An image of that group, standing on the grassy mound from which they would watch Salford play sides like Prescot Cables, Farsley Celtic and Grantham Town after buying the club ten years ago, reflects the uncomplicated joy they have all discovered here. Scholes says he finds watching football in this place more fulfilling than the Premier League. That mound, removed amid the stadium’s redevelopment into the modern Peninsula Stadium, was ‘where I feel happiest and most complete,’ Neville said in the early days.
![[But the club face a huge challenge in the coming months with Peter Lim (right), the billionaire, friend of Neville and principal Salford City investor, set to stop providing his funding to the club]](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2025/01/10/16/93967081-14271393-image-m-5_1736528327914.jpg)
And now, the FA Cup Third Round, with its beautiful capacity for storylines transcending the blood and thunder of the week-to week, takes the club, built on the principles of a glorious Manchester United era, to Manchester City. It is the greatest competitive challenge that Gary and Phil Neville, Paul Scholes, Ryan Giggs and Nicky Butt have known since becoming football club owners.
![[The Class of 92 must find a way to plug losses of £70,000 a week and £4million per year]](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2025/01/10/17/93966639-14271393-image-a-9_1736528597498.jpg)
