By SCM SPORT REPORTER
MOORE LANE – The Peninsula Stadium, home of the ‘Class of 92’ dreamers, is usually a place of hope and compact, intimate atmosphere.
But last night, the floodlights shaped like the Salford City badge bore witness to a humiliation of epic, brutal proportions as Rotherham United ripped the heart out of the Ammies with a jaw-dropping 7-2 demolition job.
Moor Lane—the old ground’s affectionate name—felt less like a tight, modern theatre of football and more like a training ground as the Millers went on a rampage that left the League Two side reeling. For a stadium that feels like the perfect blueprint for lower-league ambition, the performance on the pitch was anything but perfect.
The ground, redeveloped into a neat, 5,100-capacity arena, is designed to keep fans close to the action and maximise noise.
Instead, the closeness simply amplified the agony. Salford’s start promised a fight, with Nicolás Siri and Cole Stockton netting two early efforts, briefly raising the roof in the East Terrace. But that was the prelude to the nightmare.
Rotherham’s Josh Benson was the chief executioner, firing in a sensational second-half hat-trick in the space of just 16 minutes, turning the compact venue into a chamber of horrors for the home faithful.
Every goal thudded into the net like a heavy blow, and the normally vocal crowd was reduced to stunned silence, save for the wild celebrations spilling out of the corner allocated to the jubilant travelling support.
The sight of the Millers’ substitutes celebrating on the touchline—just feet away from the pitch in the tight surrounds—underscored the complete mismatch. As Daniel Gore and Darragh Gardner added late, clinical strikes to make it 2-7, the dream bubble built by Gary Neville and the club’s legendary owners well and truly burst.
It was a night where Salford’s ambition was drowned out by the sheer, unadulterated quality of a Championship-level side.
The Peninsula Stadium will recover its atmosphere and its sheen, but for the Salford players and the stunned fans who shuffled away into the Greater Manchester night, the Moor Lane Massacre will take a long time to forget.
