North of Manchester

Five kilometers north of Manchester, there is a place called Salford. There is no neon sign of Manchester United, no oil money of Manchester City, only a bald half of the training ground, a locker room door that cannot be closed, and a crazy coach from East London. In July 2023, Jack Cohen took over the bottom team in English League Two. The transfer budget is 0, the salary budget is 3.6M, the four main players are lying on the hospital bed, and the remaining 15 people include the captain who carries bricks at the construction site, the striker who tallies goods in the supermarket, and the college student goalkeeper who is still taking exams. The media said he had picked up a hot potato. Fans said he wouldn't last three months. Cohen didn't explain. He just called everyone to the training ground and said: "Come down if you can't run anymore. Someone is waiting to run for you." No one knows that this sentence later became the soul of this team. Four years later, they stood at Old Trafford, opposite Manchester United. Ninety minutes later, the scoreboard read: Salford 3-2 Manchester United. From the English Second Division to the Premier League, from a stadium with 15 people to a stadium with 30,000 people, from a negative budget to a world-class club—— This is a story about running. A story about how those unwanted people beat time, fate, and everyone's prejudices, and finally ran into the light of Manchester. --- They called him crazy. They call them trash. They call it north of Manchester - the place no one can see. Later, all England saw it. ·