MANCHESTER UNITED’S LEGENDARY Class of ’92 are now in charge of a Football League club after Salford City secured promotion with a 3-0 win in the National League play-off final at Wembley today.
Goals from Emmanuel Dieseruvwe, Carl Piergianni and Ibou Touray saw off AFC Fylde to clinch a second consecutive promotion for the Greater Manchester club.
Gary and Phil Neville, Paul Scholes, Ryan Giggs and Nicky Butt originally bought a stake in Salford back in 2014, with former team-mate David Beckham purchasing his own share in January this year.
Scholes was forced to sell his stake in the club in order to become manager of Oldham Athletic earlier this season, but Beckham’s intervention meant the group maintained a 60% share in the Ammies, while their business partner Peter Limm holds the remaining 40%.
The win over Fylde means the Man Utd greats – who were seen wildly celebrating the second goal at Wembley – have now led Salford to four promotions in five seasons and secured entry to the Football League for the first time in the club’s 79-year history.
Salford are also the first side in history ever to clinch promotion from the sixth tier to League Two in back-to-back seasons. They will now face Scholes’ former employers Oldham in league action next term, as well as Sol Campbell’s Macclesfield Town side. A meeting with Man Utd would also now be possible in the Carabao Cup as well as the FA Cup.
Passage through to the play-off final was won in dramatic style last week with a dramatic penalties victory over Eastleigh at Moor Lane. A third-place regular-season finish had originally clinched a play-off spot, with former Stoke, Birmingham and Aberdeen striker Adam Rooney rounding off the campaign as Salford’s top scorer with 22 league strikes.
Fylde, meanwhile, had finished fifth, although their highly-rated striker Danny Rowe was the competition’s joint-top scorer after netting 27 times.
Salford have received some criticism for the huge amounts of money that they have spent and their huge budget in comparison to many other National League clubs.
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