“Keep possession, keep possession!” Graham Alexander is overseeing one of Salford City’s final training sessions before Saturday’s National League play-off final against AFC Fylde at Wembley. The rain lashes down on the Peninsula Stadium and a full-sided game being played at full pelt and Salford’s manager, the veteran of 1,023 matches in a 23-year five-club playing career, is in his element.
“The joy I get is not just leading the team out at Wembley – it’s the everyday stuff,” says Alexander. “Waking up in the morning, knowing I’m going to work with great human beings, on a football pitch, in the crappy weather – just out there, working, changing things, improving players, trying to maximise their potential. Giving them the opportunities I was given by managers. That’s me. It’s what I do it for.”
Alexander was telephoned last summer by Chris Casper, Salford’s sporting director, about taking over and had “two or three meetings” with him and Gary Neville, who owns 10% of the club. Neville’s brother Phil, David Beckham, Paul Scholes, Nicky Butt and Ryan Giggs – the other members of the Class of 92 – all have an identical 10% share.
Alexander had reservations about managing outside the Football League because his whole professional career had been spent inside it. Yet convinced by Casper and Neville – “the ambition they spoke about, I knew it wasn’t just words” – he took his third permanent No 1 position. Previously at Fleetwood Town for three years (2012-15) and at Scunthorpe United for two (2016-18), he has guided Salford to third place and a play-off berth.
Last Saturday his team sealed passage to the final with a 4-3 penalty shootout win over Eastleigh following the semi-final second leg at the Peninsula. After the top scorer, Adam Rooney, missed their first spot-kick, the Salford-born captain, Liam Hogan, got the side back on track.
“You’re half-excited because you know it’s your opportunity to contribute,” says the 30-year-old centre-back. “We scored the rest of ours and they missed two – our big lad in nets, Chris Neal, did the job for us. You feel relief when going through like that because you give every effort possible and you know in the space of five kicks you could be out.”
Now, the focus is on Dave Challinor’s Fylde, who finished fifth, four points behind Salford. Alexander’s men beat them 2-0 at Mill Farm in early September before losing Easter Monday’s return game 1-0.
Hogan says: “I’d probably say the performance at Fylde was one of our best – everything came together: the work rate, the lads on the ball, the goals we took were brilliant. We sort of half blew them away at their place. When we played them here we’d been on the back of a big effort at Boreham Wood on Good Friday [a late 3-2 win] and it took a lot out of us. Anybody you’re going to face in the play-off who wants to go into the English Football League is going to be a tough game.”
With the billionaire businessman Peter Lim owning Salford’s other 40%, the club has riches others in the National League cannot countenance. This can draw criticism. Last July Rooney, now 31, was signed from Aberdeen on a salary thought to be £4,000 a week and, if his 24 league goals illustrate why Neville and company made the outlay, he can be the prime focus of anti-Salford sentiment, drawing abuse from opposition supporters.
Yet the club has a warm, family feel. Hogan, a former Tranmere player, jokes with backroom staff about still living in Liverpool – “I’m planting the flag behind enemy lines,” says the Manchester United fan – but a fierce work ethic is also pivotal to the manager.
“It’s something bigger than winning games of football,” says Alexander of his role. “It’s growing a fan-base, a structure, giving young players an opportunity to come through our system. It’s great to be in at this level to see the club grow.”
Promotion to League Two would be Salford’s fourth in five years since the Class of 92 and Lim bought the club. All, apart from Scholes, are expected at Wembley and Alexander says of his relationship with the former United players: “Gary is the main contact I have – he’s at the games most weeks. The other guys drop in, or send messages of support at difficult times, which is great.”
Alexander will issue his players a clear message before they walk out at Wembley. “Come match day I’m pretty hands-off and let them prepare how they need to,” he says. “I feel we work hard enough from Monday to Friday, so match day is players’ day.
“Playing at Wembley doesn’t happen every day, so I’m not going to pretend it’s not a special occasion. It’s a special place to win and a horrible place not to win. We’ve got to go there and relish it.”
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