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While it hasn’t received the glitzy treatment from Netflix or Disney, the short film series This is Salford stands out for its genuine portrayal of football heritage. The series showcases none other than Sir David Beckham, who alongside Gary Neville, revisits the storied Manchester United Littleton Road training grounds, marking his first return since leaving the club. In a candid moment, Beckham shares amusing insights into his personal life, including his wife’s frustration with his habitual habit of leaving football on TV without actually watching. “Victoria hates it!” he confesses.
He also humorously recounts her questionable gift choices. “When I buy Victoria a handbag, I’m sure she’ll love it, regardless of the cost,” Beckham explains. “But for my 50th birthday, I had to warn her, ‘Don’t get me something s**t!’”
Following Lim’s departure last year, Beckham and Neville found themselves at the forefront of a significant transformation. They spearheaded efforts to revitalize the club by introducing a new coalition of 22 affluent investors from the US, India, and the UK, collectively referred to as the ‘members,’ to share ownership.
Next season, the club will nostalgically revive its historic orange strip, replacing the red that was introduced by former Old Trafford players. This change is indicative of Beckham’s influence as a branding powerhouse, underscored by his DRJB Holdings achieving a remarkable £34.2 million profit last year.
The re-introduction of the club’s old orange strip from next season, replacing the red which the Old Trafford alumni brought in, provides another clue to the impact of Beckham, the ultimate brand influencer, whose DRJB Holdings business recorded a £34.2million annual profit last year.
Salford City co-owner Sir David Beckham visits the Peninsula Stadium where he has become much more hands-on of late. The club have a new ownership structure
The Beckhams know how to build a brand – and David is now using that expertise to boost Salford off the pitch
He is also the star of a YouTube mini-series that takes viewers inside the club
Beckham recalled how, as a young United player, he had watched Salford City’s Dave Gardner play in orange at the club’s old Moor Lane ground. His own Inter Miami have demonstrated the commercial value of playing in an unconventional colour. For Miami pink, read Salford orange.
The change – approved after Neville put it to a meeting of season-ticket holders – represents as much of a move away from the Manchester United brand as Salford City’s Companies House listing, which details the ‘termination of appointment’ as directors of all the Class of ’92 members bar Neville.
Though Scholes remains director of the club’s four-man recruitment team, all of the originals felt that it was time to hand over the baton.
Giggs, who stepped down as director of football in September, is the one whose presence is most noticeably reduced, for reasons which remain ambiguous. Daily Mail Sport understands a section of female Salford City fans felt uncomfortable about his involvement and profile, after the domestic abuse charges laid against him which a jury failed to agree on in 2022. There is no evidence that this lies behind his absence.
The EFL’s rigorous examination of the club’s proposed new co-owners – to ensure they complied with their owners’ and directors’ test – took until the brink of this season to complete. But with that process concluded, it meant the signing, in August, of Michael Rose from Stoke City, Brandon Cooper from Leyton Orient and, perhaps most critically, Dan Udoh from Wycombe Wanderers, who has delivered five goals and four assists so far this season. Italian ex-Liverpool striker Fabio Borini arrived on a one-year deal.
It has enabled manager Karl Robinson to take the club into what is shaping up as a promotion campaign, with a critical match at his old club MK Dons on Saturday. Salford are fourth, three points behind leaders Walsall, and the Dons fifth, a point behind them.
Robinson tells Daily Mail Sport how, in the uncertain period before the new ownership structure was in place, there was no money for a pre-season tour, let alone new players.
‘It went from six to seven to eight (investors), to “now David’s in” to “Gary’s back in” to “Ryan might step aside”. Paul then wanted to come back more into it. If I needed things before that time, Paul and Ryan would just put their hand in their pockets and get it for me. And then things started to fall into place.’
Beckham recalled how, as a young United player, he had watched his friend, Salford City’s Dave Gardner, play in orange at the club’s old Moor Lane ground
The Italian former Liverpool striker Fabio Borini has arrived on a one-year deal
The unusual financial model – with ‘members’ recruited from Beckham and Neville’s own networks and committing for five years – offers greater security than the Class of ’92’s annual trips to Singapore to ask Lim to maintain the funding.
The challenge, as always with Salford, is how to grow a club which does not have a huge fanbase. The average attendances of 3,300 this season are League Two’s 18th best. This is a club who only 10 years ago were playing in the Northern Premier League. The Class of 92 took them up four tiers to League Two, where their climb has been halted.
For matchday revenue, they are way behind MK Dons (average attendance this season: 7,400) and Swindon Town (8,000), whom they beat 3-2 at home on a wet Saturday which, with Beckham in attendance, produced the best This is Salford episode yet.
But with Beckham and Neville as part of the sell, there is potential for the same international sponsorship which has fuelled Hollywood clubs Wrexham and Birmingham City.
Beckham and Neville will be in India this month, as part of the club’s expansion into the Asian market which has seen Mumbai-based DreamSetGo, a sports travel firm, become a commercial sponsor.
Beckham always did seem the one of the ’92 with the greatest draw. His 88.2million followers on Instagram even puts Ryan Reynolds’ 51million in the shade, which is probably why the film star wanted him in season one of his own Welcome to Wrexham docu-series.
Beckham has not yet been a prolific promoter of the club on Instagram. But the strength of his relationship with Neville, evident in the short films, has clearly made him committed to contributing substantially.
Attendances at the The Peninsula Stadium in Salford are not as high as their rivals’, with the average being 3,300 this season
Ryan Giggs has little involvement with the club following the reboot and Nicky Butt, another member of the Class of 92, has also stepped back
Now it’s Gary Neville and Beckham running the show – and their ‘This is Salford’ series shows the strength of their relationship
One of the films captures the two of them in a taxi driving around old Manchester haunts, with Beckham reminiscing about the Manchester United issue Honda Prelude he once drove and Neville observing that he swapped his for a more sensible Honda Accord ‘four-door saloon’ because he ‘couldn’t fit anyone in the back’.
Their memories of Littleton Road, now Salford City’s training ground, as teenage players – Beckham being carpeted by United coach Eric Harrison for hitting ‘Hollywood passes’ and the reverence they felt for Nobby Stiles, then still a coach – provide football gold surpassing any other celebrity owners.
The significance of Beckham as part of the appeal has become clear at meetings of the ‘members club’, where he has been voluble – articulating to investors the value of them spending to support the development in the Littleton Road ground, allowing the club to compete in the recruitment of young talent.
‘It’s about storytelling,’ Beckham relates at one meeting. ‘If we can get a story through, that gives us the opportunity to bring in kids to our academy and prove we are a great opportunity, we can succeed.’
The club’s new chief executive Gavin Fleig, recruited from Manchester City, has declared the building up of the academy and youth player sales to be a way of making the club ‘sustainable at the highest level we can in the EFL’. Which suggests that, in the medium term at least, the Championship is the goal.
Fleig has said he wants to apply City’s way of succeeding to Salford. His own move to British football’s fourth tier was sold to him by two of the investors who Neville pursued for their corporate knowledge as well as investment potential. The first is Declan Kelly, a long-time friend of his, whose New York-headquartered investment company Consello will be building out the club’s commercial operations in the UK. And the second is Lord Mervyn Davies, the former banker and Labour Government trade minister.
The switch to orange will see Salford City be positioned as a club in their own right, rather than a byproduct of one of United’s great football generations. Of the initial switch to red by the Class of ’92, Neville told supporters: ‘I did something quite selfish and that should not have really happened. It’s not sat well with me since.’
Beckham poses with the Salford City mascot. The significance of Beckham as part of the Ammies’ appeal has become clear at meetings of the new ‘members club’
Manager Karl Robinson is bullish about the club’s prospects. ‘We’re just starting to simmer before what I think will be a fascinating “fasten your seatbelts” five years for the club,’ he says
His humility and delivery were impressive and despite a few initial objections – several fans had red-shirted tattoos – the vote for the shift was comfortably carried.
‘We respected the way he approached fans,’ Danny Shepherd, host of the Salford City podcast, One Up Front, tells Daily Mail Sport. ‘If we voted against, he would have stuck to the old colours. The sense of momentum had been lost but it feels like it’s back again.’
Robinson attributes his rediscovered love of the game at Salford, nearly a year after his dismissal by Oxford United, to the Class of ‘92 players. ‘Without them, I don’t know where my head would be.’ He feels something significant beginning to build. ‘It’s like a pan starting to simmer. Not making too much noise. We’re just starting to simmer before what I think will be a fascinating “fasten your seatbelts” five years for the club.’
Beckham’s star power provides the greatest potential to grow the audience, with the club’s YouTube audience numbers flying since the start of the short film series, produced in-house, which had always been an ambition of Neville’s. His revelations also include the fact that he once used to keep new football boots on in bed to wear them in. ‘I still do that every now again for Victoria!’ he jokes, taking viewers to the kind of place that other football documentaries can’t reach.