Salford City 0 v Crawley Town 0 - EFL League 2

Saturday 8th February 2020
SkyBet EFL League Two
at the Peninsula Stadium, Moor Lane. Salford
Salford City (0) 0
Crawley Town (0) 0
Attendance: 2,385 inc. 290 away fans

Admission: £10 - standing or sitting. Print at home ticket.

The ground on Moor Lane, that stands on the opposite side of the road to Kersall Moor, has been completely revamped since my last visit here, but then, so has Salford City FC itself.
No longer do they traverse the non-league grounds of the north-west, wearing a kit of orange and black; because since 2014, when the club was famously taken over by a consortium of ex-Manchester United players: Ryan Giggs, Gary Neville, Phil Neville, Paul Scholes and Nicky Butt, along with their business associate Peter Lim, the 'Ammies' have worn red and white, though they had first worn those colours in back 1981, some thirty nine years after their formation as Salford Central in 1940.

 (Left): Salford City's crest until 2014.

(Right): The modernised post 2014 version.

The 'Ammies' nickname arrived in 1963, to coincide with a promotion to the Manchester Senior League and a name change to Salford Amateurs.
The current name of Salford City was adopted in 1989. Some say that the most recent re-branding was undertaken when Salford itself was granted city status that same year. But that is just one of many myths surrounding the football club because Salford has been classified as a city since 1926.

The 'Class of '92' takeover, saw the five above mentioned former 'Red Devils' purchase a 10% stake each in the club, with Peter Lim holding the other 50% of the shares, of which he sold 10% of his stake-holding to David Beckham last season.
Moor Lane was flattened in 2016 and the old facilities were replaced with four new stands... hence the reasoning behind my revisit/first ever visit to a new(ish) ground* (delete as you see fit), which now has a capacity of 5,106, including 2,240 seats and is known as the Peninsula Stadium.

With seats along both sides and bolted down metal terracing at both ends of the ground, the stadium is more than adequate for League Two football, but if the club is to progress up through the Football League, though there is scope for some additional building work to increase capacity, particularly behind the West Terrace, to the rear of the current 'fanzone' bars and eateries, Moor Lane is however a residential area and there might come a time, that Salford City actually outgrow their current facility. But that is just personal observation and speculation, based on complete assumption on my part.

A local I was talking to, did suggest that Gigg Lane, Bury would be ideal for the growing club, but he might just have been saying that because if Salford City FC did move up the road to Bury, then they wouldn't be inconveniencing his own neighbourhood anymore.

The 'Ammies', who are currently managed by the former Scotland international: Graham Alexander, won the Northern Premier League Division One North title in 2014–15, before going on to win the NPL Premier Division play-offs the following season. They went on to win the National League North title at the second time of asking, at the end of their 2017–18 campaign and then secured a place in the English Football League, via a comfortable 3-0 win against AFC Fylde, in last season's National League play-off final at Wembley Stadium, in front of a crowd of 8,049.

Salford have been in the direct line of fire for criticism over the past few seasons, within some non-league circles, amid allegations that they've bought their success. Yet, I would imagine that the vast majority, if not all, of their detractors to that end, wouldn't knock back any offer that would see even a fraction of the 'Ammies' new-found wealth being pumped into their own clubs.
There was even a backlash from some quarters because of a BBC One series: 'Class of 92: Out of Their League' which was first screened in October 2015, followed by a second series in February 2016, 'Still Out of Their League', which were effectively a fly on the wall documentaries based around the day to day running of the club.

The inspiration behind today's programme cover
is the video to the Blur song 'Coffee and TV'

The resentment as regards the behind the scenes television coverage, stemmed form the fact that many people viewed the BBC serialisation as an insight into how the other half lives, rather than concentrating on the grassroots level of the game, where the cash-flow is nowhere near as fluid, but, TV exposure of non-league football, of any kind, regardless of whether it focused on the haves or have nots, surely still generates publicity for the game outside of the usual remit for nationwide television audiences.
Some people can't get enough of the new regime, while other's dismiss Salford City as a 'rich man's play-thing', but each to their own... personally, I'm just here for the afternoon, to watch a game of football and check out the new lay of the land around Moor Lane and the locality.

While Salford are the new kids on the block as regards their Football League status, Crawley Town were actually promoted from the Conference (as champions) as long ago as the end of the 2010-11 campaign; when they were still managed by Steve Evans (and his ubiquitous sidekick: Paul Raynor). They went on to win promotion to League One at the first attempt, although Evans had been batting his eyelids at gullible chairmen elsewhere by then and was tempted away from the Broadfield Stadium by the more evidently more glamorous bright-lights of Rotherham United, before the end of the 2011-12 term. Crawley then spent three seasons in League One, before dropping back into the basement division in 2015.

Salford began the afternoon in eleventh place in League Two, two points and two league positions above today's visitors Crawley, who's nickname of the 'Red Devils' is somewhat ironic given the personnel involved within the hierarchy and structure, along with the geographical location of today's host side.
The 'Ammies', who also have a second and lesser used nickname of the 'Lions', have ambitions to reach this season's promotion play-offs, or so Gary Neville said in an online interview earlier this week. Evidently he hadn't reckoned with the visitors keeper: Glenn Morris, being such a stubborn nut to crack this afternoon, as he put in a near heroic man of the match performance.

'Twas a windy afternoon, but both sides made the best of the conditions and though a draw was a good result for both team'current form statistics, whereby Salford are undefeated in five games and Crawley have only been beaten once in their last ten, a solitary point hardly is hardly like to enthuse the followers of either side, that a late season push towards the business end of the table is imminent.
The home side went close inside the first few minutes of the game, Morris pushed Bruno Andrade's well struck shot from the edge of the area away down to his right. While the next goalmouth action saw Morris in action again as he tipped Tom Elliott's thumping header over the bar at full stretch.

Crawley's should have been in front, when Josh Dacres-Cogley, who is on loan to the west Sussex side from Birmingham City, threaded to ball into the path of Ollie Palmer, but he rushed and miscued his shot and knocked the ball tamelyto Kyle Letheren, having spotted the Salford keeper Liam Hogan homing in from his left hand side, before crumpling in an undignified heap inside the Salford area.
Elliott was thwarted by the agile Morris once again, shortly before half-time, having connected well with a cross from Ash Hunter.

The visitors made a lively start to the second half and Manny Adebowale went close when he flicked a header narrowly wide.
There were spells of the game where Crawley were forced to play deep and grind out a result with what you could call, a typical away performance. You wouldn't actually sat that it was one way traffic, but Salford were definitely in the ascendancy more often than not and taking the game to John Yems' resolute and hard working side, who defended an admirable amount of rugged determination throughout... while the 'lions' share of the game was played out in the visitors half.

Hunter was inches away from unlocking Crawley's resolve, with a volley on the turn from Jack Baldwin's knock, that fizzed over the bar. However, in my humble opinion, that miss was justice, of a sort, karma even if such a thing exists, because Hunter shouldn't even still have been on the pitch following an horrific challenge on Dacres-Cogley, that he was yellow-carded for, when a red was a far more apt punishment.
Right at the death, Jordan Tunnicliffe came to the 'Red Devils' rescue with a last ditch block from Richie Towell's strike.
FT: Salford City 0 v Crawley Town 0
Footnote: Brief highlights courtesy of Salford City FC's Twitter feed.
Key moments from the draw against Crawley Town.#WeAreSalford 🦁🔴 pic.twitter.com/twx4ldb1mN

— Salford City FC (@SalfordCityFC) February 9, 2020