The Salford City soap opera rolls on with this victory over the world’s oldest club that put the side co-owned by the Class of 92 into the FA Cup second round for the first time. “Sensational” was the only word Paul Scholes required afterwards to describe his emotion and a night anyone present will long remember.
Gary Neville, Nicky Butt and Scholes were all here to see Notts County knocked out, though Ryan Giggs and Phil Neville were absent due to work commitments. The latter is a coach at Valencia and Giggs is Louis van Gaal’s No2 at Manchester United, and the quasi-umbilical tie with the club a few miles away was emphasised by the opener coming from Danny Webber.
Now 33, the striker was at Old Trafford from 1999 until 2003 when Neville and company were in their pomp. Tonight Webber required only 18 seconds of the second half to bundle the ball home past another former United player Roy Carroll after James Poole created havoc in the County area. Soon afterwards the impressive Jordan Hulme ended another raid by The Ammies by banging a shot off the frame of Carroll’s goal as his side’s dominance continued.
Before the break Scott Burton’s 30-yard fly-hack offered a neat microcosm of an opening half that lacked quality. City were far more inventive than County but they could not close business when near goal.
This was also City’s bow in the Cup’s first round proper and the 1,400 inside Moor Lane were given a mild November evening ideal for the occasion. Neville, as is his style, said in his programme notes that the club should not be satisfied with merely having reached this juncture. “The goal of Salford City is for the first, second and third round of the FA Cup to be the norm rather than the exception,” he wrote. “Winning the FA Cup is just a dream this year. In future years who knows!”
The manner with which Steve Howson refused to give up when Adam Campell burst beyond Jay Lynch, the City goalkeeper, to make a goal-line clearance midway through the second half was reminiscent of Neville’s iron will to win.
Afterwards a beaming Neville said: “That goal-line clearance was a big moment. Notts County didn’t play well but that wouldn’t be easy for any club tonight. We were superb.”
Even better had followed Howson’s intervention. Richie Allen had been on the pitch around four minutes, after replacing Webber, when he struck a rocket past Carroll. This sent the crowd ballistic and a mêlée of players and staff invaded the pitch to engulf Allen, including the joint-managers, Anthony Johnson and Bernard Morley.
It meant City were 2-0 up with only 17 minutes left and, though County posed the odd threat, the victory when confirmed was supremely deserved.
“It is once-in-a-lifetime stuff. We came up against a good side but we battered them. The effort they put in is staggering,” was the verdict of an ecstatic Johnson, who with Morley masterminded this elimination of a club from League Two, three tiers above the Northern Premier League which City compete in.
A night that began with the Pogues’ rendition of club anthem Dirty Old Town, written by Salfordian James Henry Miller, ended with an old-fashioned pitch invasion from delirious fans and City and their gilded owners grinning wildly. They can hardly wait for the draw for the next round.
