Key details

Saturday 20 July, 3 pm
Brookburn Road, Chorlton, M21 8FE
Pre-Season Friendly
£5 adults / £3 concessions / £1 under-16s

Season Ticket holders get free entry to all home pre-season fixtures – find out more here, or buy yours now here.

Match Preview

West welcome a team from the other side of the River Irwell on Saturday as Salford City bring an XI to Brookburn Road in what is sure to be a toughly contested tie as both squads gear up towards seasons with hugely contrasting aims.

Salford City as a club made national headlines at the end of last season, with their first team winning the National League playoff final against Fylde to finally break out of Non-League 79 years after forming. The club – which was taken over by Singaporean billionaire Peter Lim, alongside former footballers Phil Neville, Gary Nevill, Nicky Butt, Paul Scholes, and Ryan Giggs in 2014, before David Beckham also became co-owner in January of this year – were playing in the North West Counties Football League only 12 short years ago, and have earned promotion in 4 out of 5 years since their new owners were instated.

A hugely ambitious club, last summer saw them tempt Adam Rooney to swap the Scottish Premier Football League for English Non-League as he joined from Aberdeen. Although yet to make any similarly big waves in this close season, the Ammies – a nickname taken from their days as an amateur club, and still retained today – will surely be hoping to make the upper reaches of League Two, in with only Bradford having better odds to win the division outright.

Salford’s first team will be playing on Friday night against Woking, with this XI expected to be made up of those who don’t get a run out on the evening, and other squad players – a perfect chance for Brad Cooke’s side to test their mettle against a professional outfit with competitive football a matter of days away.