Inside David Beckham’s Salford City reboot: How ‘Brand Beckham’ is bringing in cash from India, why he’s turning the kit orange and how Man United legend is revolutionising the club after breakdown of Class of 92 project

It hasn’t received the Netflix or Disney treatment yet, but a new short film series has been dubbed for originality and football nobility. This is Salford It takes some beating.

The star and main character is Sir David Beckham, who makes an emotional return to the former Manchester United Littleton Road training ground for the first time since leaving the club alongside Gary Neville, where we hear him fondly describe some of the more obscure aspects of his married life. For example, his wife gets exasperated and he always plays football without watching it on TV. ‘Victoria hates this!’

And his questionable taste in giving her birthday gifts. ‘I’m going to go buy my wife a bag and I know how much I’ll spend,’ he says. ‘But for my 50th birthday I had to say: “Don’t buy me any shit!”

When the Class of ’92 bought Salford City in 2014 with the financial backing of Singaporean billionaire Peter Lim, Beckham was a silent partner with little visibility for Gary and Phil Neville, Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes and Nicky Butt.

But with Lim withdrawing his support last year and former United players scrambling to keep the club afloat, ‘Brand Beckham’, along with Gary Neville, is at the center of an overhaul that has included a new group of 22 US, Indian and British investors, known as ‘members’, as co-owners.

The reintroduction of the club’s old orange strip from next season, replacing the red introduced by Old Trafford graduates, provides another clue to the influence of the brand’s flagship influencer Beckham, whose DRJB Holdings business recorded annual profits of £34.2 million last year.

The Beckhams know how to build a brand and David is now using that expertise to support Salford off the pitch

He is also the star of a YouTube miniseries that takes viewers inside the club.

Beckham recalled watching Salford City’s Dave Gardner play in an orange jersey at the club’s old Moor Lane ground when he was a youth player for United. His own Inter Miami have proven the commercial value of playing in an unconventional colour. For Miami pink, read Salford orange.

The change, which was approved after Neville presented it to a meeting of season ticket holders, represents as much a move away from the Manchester United brand as Salford City’s Companies House listing, which details the ‘cease of duties’ as directors of all members of the Class of ’92 except Neville.

Although Scholes remained director of the club’s four-man recruitment team, the entire original team felt it was time to hand over the mantle.

Giggs, who stepped down as director of football in September, has been the name whose presence has diminished most noticeably, for reasons that remain unclear. Daily Mail Sports Following domestic abuse charges in 2022 that the jury could not agree on, Salford City understands a section of their female fans are upset with his involvement and profile. There is no evidence that this is behind his absence.

It took until the brink of this season for the EFL to complete its rigorous review of the club’s proposed new co-owners to ensure they met the owners’ and managers’ test. But completing that process meant the signing of Michael Rose from Stoke City in August, Brandon Cooper from Leyton Orient and, perhaps most importantly, Dan Udoh from Wycombe Wanderers, who has five goals and four assists so far this season. Italian former Liverpool forward Fabio Borini signed a one-year contract.

This has allowed manager Karl Robinson to involve the club in what is shaping up as a promotion campaign, with a crucial game at his former club MK Dons on Saturday. Salford are fourth, three points behind leaders Walsall, while the Dons are fifth, one point behind them.

Robinson tells Daily Mail Sports In the uncertain period before the new ownership structure came into force, there was no money available for a pre-season tour, let alone new players.

It went from ‘six to seven to eight (investors) to ‘now David is in’ to ‘Gary is back’ to ‘Ryan might step aside’. Paul then wanted to go further into the subject. If I needed something before then, Paul and Ryan would put their hands in their pockets and get it for me. And then everything started to fall into place.’

Beckham recalled, as a youth player for United, watching his friend Salford City’s Dave Gardner play in an orange jersey at the club’s old Moor Lane ground.

Liverpool’s former Italian striker Fabio Borini signed a 1-year contract.

The unconventional financial model, with “members” drawn 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 that doesn’t have a huge fan base. The average attendance this season was 3,300, the 18th best attendance in the Second League. This is a club that was playing in the Northern Premier League just 10 years ago. The Class of ’92 took them up four tiers to League Two, where their climb was halted.

In terms of matchday revenue, they are well behind MK Dons (average attendance this season: 7,400) and Swindon Town (8,000), who they beat 3-2 at home on a rainy Saturday and were the best performers with Beckham in attendance. This is Salford episode yet.

But with Beckham and Neville being part of the sale, there is the same potential for international sponsorship that has moved 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, with DreamSetGo, a Mumbai-based sports travel firm, becoming commercial sponsor.

Beckham always looked like one of the top draws in ’92. Her 88.2 million followers on Instagram dwarf even Ryan Reynolds’ 51 million, which is probably why the movie star wanted her in season one. Welcome to Wrexham documentary series.

Beckham has yet to become a prolific supporter of the club on Instagram. But the strength of her relationship with Neville ensured that she was determined to contribute significantly, as evident in the short films.

Attendance at The Peninsula Stadium in Salford is not as high as its rivals; The average this season was 3,300.

Ryan Giggs has little involvement with the club after the restart and another member of the Class of 92, Nicky Butt, has also stepped back.

Now Gary Neville and Beckham are running the show and ‘This is Salford’ shows the strength of their relationship

One of the films captures the two of them wandering around old Manchester haunts in a taxi; Beckham reminisces about the Manchester United issue Honda Prelude he once drove, and Neville observes that he replaced his own car with a more sensible Honda Accord “four-door sedan” because he “couldn’t fit anyone in the back”.

As young players, their memories of Littleton Road, now Salford City’s training ground – with Beckham being pinned to the carpet by United coach Eric Harrison for throwing ‘Hollywood passes’ and their respect for Nobby Stiles, then still coach – provide football gold that surpasses other famous owners.

Beckham’s importance as part of the call was made clear at ‘members club’ meetings; here he voiced to investors the value of their spending to support development at the Littleton Road site, allowing the club to compete in recruiting young talent.

‘It’s about storytelling,’ Beckham said in a meeting. ‘If we can deliver a story that gives us the opportunity to bring children to our academy and prove that we are a great opportunity, we can be successful.’

The club’s new chief executive, Gavin Fleig, recruited from Manchester City, explained that increasing the academy and youth player sales was a way of making the club ‘sustainable at the highest level possible in the EFL’. This shows that the goal is the Championship, at least in the medium term.

Fleig said he wanted to apply City’s method of success to Salford. His move to the fourth tier of English football was sold to him by two investors who Neville had been following for both his institutional know-how and investment potential. The first is long-time friend Declan Kelly, whose New York-based investment firm Consello will build the club’s UK business operations. The second is Lord Mervyn Davies, the former banker and Labor Government business secretary.

The move to orange will position Salford City as a club in its own right rather than a spin-off of one of United’s great footballing generations. Of the Class of ’92’s first switch to red, Neville told fans: ‘I did something quite selfish and it really shouldn’t have happened. I haven’t liked it much since then.”

Beckham poses with the Salford City mascot. Beckham’s importance laid bare at new ‘members club’ meetings as part of Ammies appeal

Manager Karl Robinson is optimistic about the club’s future. ‘We’re starting to boil down to five years ahead of what I think will be a fascinating ‘fasten your seatbelts’ period for the club,’ he says

His humility and presentation were impressive, and despite a few initial objections (a few fans had red shirt tattoos) the vote for change was easily passed.

‘We respected the way he approached the fans,’ said Danny Shepherd, host of the Salford City podcast. One Up Fronttells Daily Mail Sports. ‘If we had voted against it he would have stuck to the old colours. The sense of momentum was gone, but it feels like it’s back again.’

Almost a year after he was dismissed by Oxford United, Robinson attributes his rediscovered love of football at Salford to the Class of ’92 players. ‘I don’t know where my head would be without them.’ He senses that something important is beginning to be built. ‘It’s like a pan starting to boil. Not making too much noise. We’re starting to boil down to five years ahead of what I think will be a fascinating ‘fasten your seatbelts’ period for the club.’

Beckham’s star power provides the greatest potential to grow its audience, with the club’s YouTube audience growing rapidly since the inception of the in-house produced short film series, which has always been Neville’s passion. Among the things he reveals is the fact that he once kept his new football boots in his bed to wear. ‘I’m still doing this for Victoria!’ By making jokes, it takes the audience to a place that other football documentaries cannot reach.