He painted Salford’s Loaded Flops

Salford City (H) - League 2 - 1st April 2025

Photo: Luke Reynolds Photography

There are moments here only yours and mine

Tiny dots on an endless timeline

La Dispute

Ben Sheppard is delivering his dead-eyed shtick, talking about danglers on Tipping Point, keeping the screen warm for everyone’s fake best buddy Bradley Walsh. You've already watched Impossible, Countdown and Jeopardy, and House of Games is on 6. I wonder if those prawns have defrosted? It's pasta for tea. Do we have any garlic bread in? And oh shit, we've got a bloody game tonight!

Much of life is prescriptive; brush your teeth, fasten your shoelaces, buy a Greggs sausage roll, digest it, shit it. All done without thinking. We play Salford twice a season and it barely registers conscious thought. It's very easy to forget Salford exist at all, and if they just got ctrl+alt+deleted completely, would anyone notice? We've never beaten them since gaining promotion, but I couldn't care less. A bogey team I'm happy to leave lodged in the nostril.

As Discoland blasts from the speakers, it feels as out of place as a rendition of Agadoo at a close relative's funeral. A glance at the trifecta of stands and it seems no one else can be bothered either. Even playoff-chasing Salford have only managed a bloodspattering of fans peppering the much maligned away stand.

Lock up your brother's wives, Ryan Giggs is taking his seat in Barely Legal stadium dugout, renamed tonight in his honour. Salford remain the only team in the league with parental controls on the stats iPad. Give it a rest Ryan, we've kicked off.

The game gets underway and quickly breaks into an arrhythmic mess of misplaced passes with all the coordination of James Corden dancing the Paso Doble with a meat hangover wearing lead clogs.

Wyll Stanway is making his second appearance of his second spell betwixt the sticks this season. It looks like he's been on the brick shithouse diet as he appears to have grown in stature both physically and in confidence. He's quickly called into action with a smart save with his bonce. Will he be number one next season?*

Matthew Lund's greying mane makes him look like he's just stepped off the set of a Viagra advert, but that doesn't stop him starting the demolition process of the crossbar early by smashing a shot hard into the façade.

Barrow put bodies on the line on the half hour, treating a Salford attack as their Battle of Trafalgar. Something that has become the norm under Whing.

Did someone not tell the ref that April Fools' day finishes at 12? Acquah is receiving his usual WWE treatment, but fouls are going against him.

Cole Stockton doppelgänger Liam Shepherd takes another pop at the crossbar before we start to put a few moves together.

On 37, Gotts gets it forward with a looping ball to the back post. Whitfield does well to hook the ball back across the goal, and Smith stumbles the ball over the line. The ref takes a minute to play back the VAR of his own memory before awarding the goal.

There's still time in the half for Stanway to pull off a fantastic double save to keep us ahead at the break.

Into the second half, and Barrow have had a glass of Mead and Whing rocket, with Smith having an early effort on goal after good work from Whitfield. A weak punch from their keeper goes unpunished as Campbell skies a shot. Foley has been watching Ollie Banks YouTube highlights as he tries a forty-yard free kick which leaves the crossbar begging for submission. But it's not all going our way as Salford wake up to the fact there's a football match going on by putting Cole Stockton through; Stanway's melon once again called into action.

Another chance falls to Jackson, but he John Smiths his volley, bringing down yet another SpaceX rocket by sending the ball into the stratosphere.

70 minutes and a hopefully lofted corner from Salford offers us an opportunity for a choose-your-own adventure. Stanway is clearly fouled by a Salford player with a forearm to his (already battered) pate; turn to page 7. Stanway fluffs his lines and drops the ball into the goal; turn to page 11. *Stanway gets my vote for next season’s number one.

Whichever page you turn to doesn't change the fact the goal is awarded. One-all it finishes, and it's been a surprisingly entertaining game. Lacking some quality in places for sure, but when you take away any buttock-clenching jeopardy of relegation or promotion at this stage of the season, you can keep your blood pressure at a steady 120/80 and actually enjoy an occasion such as this. There are many reasons to be optimistic for next season, with a marked improvement in application and organisation and our current playoff form. Six games to go, and there's a good amount of schadenfreude to be had elsewhere, if you're that way inclined.