title: Salford City F.C.

text: The club would adopt its current name of Salford City in 1989 and, the following season, they returned to the final of the Manchester Premier Cup, losing to Curzon Ashton. Later in 1990, they entered the FA Cup for the first time to mark the club's 50th anniversary, losing 3–0 to Warrington Town. Brief highlights of the game were included in the BBC's coverage of the buildup to the 1991 FA Cup final. Salford would later be relegated out of Division One into Division Two at the end of the 1990–91 season, though a league restructuring saw them immediately promoted the following season. The 2001–02 saw Salford narrowly miss out on major success; despite amassing 97 points, they missed out on promotion to Prescot Cables on goal difference, and also made another appearance in the final of the Manchester Premier Cup in 2002, but lost 3–1 to Ashton United at Boundary Park. Manager Andy Brown resigned in March of the next season, with their title challenge collapsing following a post-Christmas run of one win in 10, culminating in a 4–0 defeat to Skelmersdale United.


title: Salford City F.C.

text: In the 2003–04 season, with the team 16 points behind Mossley despite being again considered amongst the favourites for the league, the club sacked Chris Wilcock and replaced him with former player Mark Molyneaux. He lasted less than a year before resigning, citing financial restrictions placed on him by the club. He was replaced by Darren Lyons. In the 2004–05 season, Salford reached the third round of the FA Vase before losing 2–1 to West Allotment Celtic In March, they appointed John Foster as manager to replace Darren Lyons, with his first game being a 5–1 victory over Atherton Collieries. At the end of the season, Foster left his role as manager, and was replaced by Irlam manager Gary Fellows. Fellows began his reign with a 4–2 win against Glossop North End, followed by a 4–2 loss to title favourites Cammell Laird.


title: Salford City F.C.

text: In January 2006, Salford pulled off a coup by signing former Manchester United starlet Ben Thornley, with the hopes of boosting matchday attendance. Having defeated Ramsbottom United 2–1, Salford reached the NWCFL League Challenge Cup semi-finals for the first time, where they overcome a first leg loss to beat Oldham Town 2–1 over two legs. In May, Salford won the final, overcoming holders Cammell Laird 3–2 in the final; goals from Jamie Baguley, John Robinson and Callum Higginbottom gave Salford a 3–0 lead which eventually won Salford the trophy, the first time they had achieved silverware in their 24 years as a semi-professional team. However, the club would miss out on promotion on the last day of the season, with a 1–0 loss to Cammell Laird dropping them to fifth, with restructuring of the league meaning only three teams would be promoted.


title: Salford City F.C.

text: In June, local businessman and former Salford player Darren Quick became the new Salford chairman, taking over from Ged Carter, and was being quoted as saying that he was targeting Conference football within six years, while promising Fellows a bigger budget to help the club fulfil their potential. The season began with a 3–1 home loss to Curzon Ashton, despite having gone a goal up after 15 minutes, but followed with five wins on the bounce to move into third in the table. On 3 October, Salford played a home league game against F.C. United of Manchester at The Willows, previous home of rugby league side Salford City Reds; Salford won the game 2–1 in front of a crowd of 4,058, leaving Fellows to be confident of a title challenge. After consecutively beating Stone Dominoes and Squires Gate 5–0 and 4–0 respectively, Salford moved level on points with FC United in December, and then became sole league-leaders at Christmas having picked up four points from games against Newcastle Town and Maine Road, with Fellows restating his belief the club could go on to win the league.


title: Salford City F.C.

text: In the 2007–08 season, Salford were again amongst the favourites for promotion, and began their campaign with back-to-back 2–1 victories against Formby and Winsford United. They went unbeaten in nine games before suffering a 1–0 defeat to Silsden in late October. They ended their campaign by defeating league champions Trafford 3–0 followed two days later by a 2–1 win against Runcorn Linnets, meaning the club finished second in Division One of the North West Counties League, and after weeks of uncertainty, the FA confirmed that the club had been promoted to Division One North of the NPL, the eighth tier of the English football league system and what would be the highest level the club had ever played at. Salford would also enter the FA Vase for the final time in this season, achieving their joint-best run after beating Hallam 3–0, before suffering a surprise 3–1 defeat to Coventry Sphinx.


title: Salford City F.C.

text: The club suffered a difficult start in the NPL, losing six of their first seven matches, including shipping four goals in three consecutive games to Clitheroe, Mossley, and Bamber Bridge, a run of form which resulted in Fellows being relieved of his managerial duties in October 2008. In the two fixtures following his departure, the team picked up their second point of the season against Colwyn Bay, followed by a victory in the FA Trophy preliminary stage against Gresley Rovers. Salford moved to appoint former Bridlington Town and Stockport Sports manager Ashley Berry as the new manager, with Greg Challender as his assistant, and he quickly made experienced midfielder Neil Redfearn their first signing. His first game in charge did not bring about a change in fortunes, losing 6–2 at home to Trafford. Berry's first win in charge, and the club's first league win of the season, came on 15 November, when they defeated Mossley despite going behind in the 19th minute.


title: Salford City F.C.

text: After only two months and with results still not improving, Berry was sacked, with chairman Darren Quick citing the club's desperation to not be relegated after only one season in the division. Berry was replaced the following month by former Flixton manager Paul Wright; however, Salford were unaware of a pre-existing suspension he had received from the Football Association for a "serious touchline breach", meaning Wright was unable to start work until March and thus forcing the club to appoint their fourth manager of the season, Neil Hall, who deputised for the first two months of 2009. By the time Wright took up his position, Salford were languishing at the bottom of the league, having achieved one win and a total of eight points from their first 26 games, leaving them 15 points adrift from safety.


title: Salford City F.C.

text: A second win of the season finally came in March, when new signing Steve Foster scored all five goals in a 5–3 away win at Lancaster City. This was followed three days later by Salford's worst ever defeat, an 8–1 shellacking from Wakefield, a game where Salford went into the break level before conceding seven second-half goals. Their first victory of the season at Moor Lane came at the end of March, a 1–0 win against Bamber Bridge also marking Salford's first clean sheet of the season, and meant they had more than halved the points deficit to their closest relegation rival. The club's form continued to improve, and they achieved an important 3–1 victory over relegation rivals Rossendale United at the beginning of April, a game dubbed ""The Game of Death"". Over the Easter weekend, Salford picked up a further four points with a 2–2 draw with Chorley followed by a 3–1 win over Warrington Town, meaning they now sat only four points behind Rossendale with a game in hand. Salford won their game in hand against Harrogate Railway Athletic, but lost 4–1 to Skelmersdale United, meaning the relegation battle would be decided in the last round of fixtures.


title: Salford City F.C.

text: Survival was secured on the final day of the season with a 5–2 win away at Garforth Town. It was a turnaround in fortunes dubbed "The Great Escape"; the club had been bottom of the table since August, were relying on Rossendale losing to Mossley, and were losing their own game 1–0 at half-time.


title: Salford City F.C.

text: The 2009–10 season saw strong performances in the FA Cup and the FA Trophy, with the club reaching the third qualification stage of both competitions, eventually losing in extra time to Blyth Spartans in the FA Cup in October, before succumbing to a last minute defeat to King's Lynn. In October, arsonists burned down Salford's clubhouse, destroying memorabilia and photographs collected for over 20 years. In February 2010, having lost four of their last five home matches, Salford parted company with Wright. Chairman Darren Quick took the unusual step of taking on the role of caretaker manager, to be assisted by the club's former manager Mark Molyneaux, with the pair taking four points of a possible six after beating Garforth Town 1–0 and drawing with Wakefield. A few weeks later, it was revealed the pair would be in charge until the end of the season. Under the pair, the team again enjoyed a strong finish to the season, taking 36 points from the remaining games and finishing 11th in the table, their highest ever league finish.


title: Salford City F.C.

text: Salford started the 2010–11 season in similar form to the end of the previous; a last minute equaliser earned a 2–2 draw with Trafford which was followed with a 2–1 away to Prescot Cables, meaning they sat in eighth place, their highest league position since promotion two years earlier. But their form soon took a downturn; following two heavy home defeats in the league in four days, 4–0 to Chester and 5–0 to Skelmersdale United, and a 4–1 defeat in the FA Trophy qualification to Ossett Albion, Quick decided to end his tenure as caretaker manager having lost six games in a row. He quickly replaced himself with Rhodri Giggs, who would act as player-manager, and he began his reign with a 4–0 win against Durham City. Results continued to improve under Giggs, managing to win his first six games in charge which resulted in Salford being just outside the promotion places. However, after losing star striker Steve Foster to Chorley in March, Salford lost 6–2 to Durham. It was Foster's replacement Jack Redshaw who would help Salford rediscover their form, scoring the second in a 2–1 win against Wakefield for the club's first win in seven games, before taking his tally to five goals in four games by scoring both goals in a 2–0 win over struggling Leigh Genesis. After picking up four points from six against during the Easter weekend against Prescot Cables and Warrington Town, Salford moved into the top ten, and eventually finished the season in 12th position.


title: Salford City F.C.

text: The club began well in 2011–12, with hopes of a playoff push, but a poor run of form at the start of 2012, combined with the frequent departure of the club's top players, including Player of the Year Matty Cross to Warrington, resulted in a mid-table finish. After the final home game of the season, Giggs announced he was resigning from the post with immediate effect, with club captain Darren Hockenhull taking over the final two games against AFC Fylde and Ossett Albion.


title: Salford City F.C.

text: In May 2012, the club appointed Darren Sheridan as the new manager. The 2012–13 league season started well, and the club also enjoyed a local derby in the preliminary round of the FA Cup against FC United of Manchester. Over 1,300 fans were in attendance at Moor Lane to watch a narrow loss in a five-goal thriller. Sheridan's tenure lasted only eight months, resigning in January 2013 following a review of the club's budget, with his final game being a 5–2 win against Wakefield despite being down to 8 players. Salford appointed Andy Heald as caretaker manager, before announcing his permanent appointment a month later. Before his first game, club captain Jimmy Holden departed, defender Jameel Ibe left for York City, and striker Danny Heffernan returned to Australia; Heald managed the team to a 2–2 draw with Mossley. Under his leadership, Salford finished a disappointing 16th place, which included a 6–0 battering by Trafford, but enjoyed a run to the final of the Manchester Premier Cup where they faced Mossley at Edgeley Park; despite a rousing late comeback to level the game at 2–2, Salford lost 4–2 in the resulting penalty shoot-out. At the end of the season, Heald and his assistant Chris Thompson left the club by mutual consent, citing business and family commitments.


title: Salford City F.C.

text: Ahead of the 2013–14 campaign, the club experienced several major changes; club legend Barry Massay and Phil Power were appointed as joint managers, Salford based businesswoman Karen Baird took over as chairman from the long-serving Quick, and the first team squad now had a "Salford core", having retained only three players from the previous season. The new management team got off to a strong start, beginning with a first ever opening day victory in the division, a 1–0 victory over Harrogate Railway Athletic, and were unbeaten after the first six games of the season until a 2–0 defeat to Burscough. Form began to dip, winning just one of their next twelve games before a 2–1 away win against Ossett Albion in November. The decision was made to reshuffle the management team with Power assuming sole managerial responsibility and Massay dropping down to an assistant managerial role, before subsequently leaving the club completely a month later. In their next game, Salford scored their most ever goals in a game in the division when they defeated Kendal Town 6–3 at home.


title: Salford City F.C.

text: On 27 March 2014, it was announced that, subject to FA and NPL approval, Salford would be taken over by the "Project 92 Limited" consortium, a group consisting of former Manchester United players Nicky Butt, Ryan Giggs, Gary Neville, Phil Neville, and Paul Scholes, known collectively as the "Class of '92", expected to be completed by the summer. Chairman Karen Baird described it as "massive", saying it would secure the future of the club. At the following Salford games, a 3–2 win over Farsley Celtic and a 3–1 home loss to New Mills, fans chanted "We are Tangerine" in protest at rumours the club's colours would be changed. Fan unrest continued to grow until the final game of the season, a 3–1 loss to Prescot Cables, which meant Salford finished the season in 12th position.


title: Salford City F.C.

text: With the proposed takeover of the club completed, the new ownership team were present at pre-season training in July 2014, at which Giggs suggested the consortium had ambitious aims for the non-league club, with a target of Championship level football within 15 years. It was confirmed that Baird would remain the club's chairman and Power would continue as manager. Prior to the start of the 2014–15 season, the club announced a showcase match against a "Class of '92 XI" featuring all five of the new owners which Salford City went on to win 5–1. The 2014–15 season began with a 4–1 win at Moor Lane against Scarborough Athletic, with several hardcore fans refusing to attend in protest to the changing of the club colours and badge, while the "Salford Star" dubbed the group "The Class of Vincent Tan" in reference to the Cardiff City owner who had also changed the club colours to red. The good start continued, with Salford unbeaten in the first 13 games. In September, the ownership team announced that they had agreed to sell a 50% stake in the club to Singapore–based billionaire Peter Lim, the owner of Valencia.


title: Salford City F.C.

text: Despite the promising start, a dip in form during December resulted in only four wins from the following 11 matches, which saw the team fall behind Darlington at the top of the league. As a result, Power was sacked in January 2015 after 18 months in the role. Scholes and Phil Neville acted as caretaker managers for the subsequent match against Kendal Town, before announcing the arrival of the new managerial team of Anthony Johnson and Bernard Morley. Johnson and Morley had led Ramsbottom United to promotion from the NPL Division One North during the previous season. The new managerial team went on to win 15 of the remaining 17 matches of the season, a feat which saw them regain their place at the top of the table. With Darlington failing to win their penultimate match of the season, Salford were crowned champions, guaranteeing promotion to the NPL Premier Division. The championship was celebrated with Salford recording their ninth consecutive win in a 5–0 victory over Ossett Town in front of a crowd of over 1,100.


title: Salford City F.C.

text: Johnson and Morley's first full season at the club began with a 0–0 home draw with Marine. The club reached the 1st Round of the FA Cup for the first time in their 25-year association with the competition, having defeated fellow league side Whitby Town, Curzon Ashton and Bradford (Park Avenue) from the National League North, and Southport from the National League in the Qualifying Rounds. In front of a sell-out crowd of 1,400 and airing on live the BBC, Salford scored a famous 2–0 win over League Two side Notts County at Moor Lane, with goals from Danny Webber and substitute Richie Allen. In the 2nd round, they were drawn at home to another League Two side, Hartlepool United, A 1–1 draw, again televised on the BBC, earned Salford a replay, this time aired on BT Sport, where they took Hartlepool to extra-time before succumbing 2–0.


title: Salford City F.C.

text: In January, Salford beat Barwell 7–0 to move second in the table. Having been in the top five places for the majority of the season, Salford eventually finished third behind champions Darlington 1883 and runners-up Blyth Spartans to claim a playoff place. Ashton United were defeated 3–1 in the semi-final at Moor Lane, which was followed up four days later with a 3–2 win over Workington at the same venue in front of nearly 2,000 spectators. The Ammies' scored twice in the final eleven minutes to claim their place in the National League North for the 2016–17 season, the highest level the club had ever reached in their 76-year history.


title: Salford City F.C.

text: Johnson and Morley celebrated their 100th game in charge on 19 November, with Salford picking up a 3–0 win against Worcester City.


title: Salford City F.C.

text: In March 2017, Johnson and Morley both signed two-year full-time contracts, starting from 1 April. The club also announced that from 1 July, players with the club would become full-time professional players. Salford appointed Chris Casper, who was part of the "Class of '92", as the club's sporting director in charge of "Academy 92". Ahead of their first professional campaign, the owners outlined their target to eventually reach the Premier League. In May, Salford lost in the National League North playoff semi-final, being defeated on penalties by Halifax Town.


title: Salford City F.C.

text: On 5 August, Salford-born Liam Hogan was announced as the new club captain. On 12 August, Mani Ogunrinde and Anointed Chukwu became the first "Academy 92" players to represent the first team, when they came on as late substitutes in a 2–0 away win against Telford United. On 21 April 2018, with promotion rivals Harrogate Town losing away to Bradford P.A., the club were promoted as champions of the National League North with one game to play, despite a 2–1 home defeat to Boston United, and in the process secured promotion to National League, once again re-setting the bar for the highest level the club had ever attained. On 8 May, it was announced Johnson and Morley had left the club by mutual consent, due to irreconcilable differences regarding performance and contract length. On 14 May, Graham Alexander was appointed as the club's new manager after signing a four-year contract.


title: Salford City F.C.

text: Ahead of the season, Salford were regarded as favourites to take the one automatic promotion place, but faced criticism for their spending and were accused of trying to "steal" a place in the Football League. In their first game in the National League on 4 August, they drew 1–1 with promotion rivals Leyton Orient, with their goal being scored by Rory Gaffney. Their first victory in the division was achieved on 14 August, with a 2–1 home win against Halifax Town. Salford reached the first round of the FA Cup for a second time; having defeated Marine 2–1 in the final qualifying round, they were drawn to play away at League One side Shrewsbury Town. An equaliser from Adam Rooney earned Salford a replay, in which Rooney would score again in a 3–1 defeat. Salford suffered three consecutive defeats in the Christmas period which left them in third place, five points behind Orient – a 2–1 loss to Dagenham & Redbridge was followed by a heavy 5–1 defeat to promotion rivals Wrexham on Boxing Day. Three days later, 10-man Salford conceded a 94th-minute goal in a 3–2 away loss to Barrow.


title: Salford City F.C.

text: They quickly closed the gap on leaders Leyton Orient, winning 3–0 in the reverse fixture at Brisbane Road on 5 January. Later that month it was announced that David Beckham was set to join his Class of '92 teammates as part owner of the club, taking 10% of the club previously held by Peter Lim, with the deal being subject to FA approval. Salford would go on a 10 match unbeaten run, including a late comeback to beat Bromley 2–1, and an 88th-minute winner against Boreham Wood to win 3–2. They would finally miss out on the title, and automatic promotion, by losing their final games of the season to Fylde and Hartlepool, meaning the club finished third in the table behind champions Orient and Solihull Moors.


title: Salford City F.C.

text: During the season, Salford played their first ever games in the FA Trophy proper, starting with a 3–1 win over Gateshead in the first round in December, followed by a 3–1 win against Dagenham & Redbridge. In the third round Salford faced Maidstone United where they were held to a 1–1 draw at home, meaning a replay was necessary, which Maidstone won 3–0 a week later.


title: Salford City F.C.

text: On 5 May 2019, Salford reached the National League play-off Final after overcoming Eastleigh in a penalty shootout after a 1–1 draw, meaning they would play at Wembley Stadium for the first time in their history. On 11 May, they beat Fylde 3–0 in the final, with goals from Emmanuel Dieseruvwe, Carl Piergianni, and Ibou Touray; this marked the first time Salford had ever reached the Football League. During the summer, the club appointed Warren Joyce to manage their first ever development squad, designed to be a stepping stone between the academy and the first team.


title: Salford City F.C.

text: They began their first season in the league with a 2–0 win against Stevenage, with both goals coming from Dieseruvwe. Salford would take part in two competitions for the first time; they lost their first ever game in the League Cup 3–0 at home to Leeds United in front of 4,518 fans, a record attendance at Moor Lane. They achieved their first away victory in the Football League on 5 October, when goals from Luke Armstrong, Jake Jervis, and Touray gave the club a 3–0 win against Walsall. Later in the season, the club would reach the EFL Trophy Final after defeating Newport County via a penalty shootout, where they were due to play League One side Portsmouth; the game was postponed indefinitely following the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom. In June, the league season was officially cut short after League Two clubs voted by an "overwhelmingly majority", with the league table to be decided on a points per game basis, meaning Salford finished their début season in the Football League in 11th. Later that month, Salford took the decision to scrap their Under 18 team, deciding to focus exclusively on the development squad. Phil Neville said that the reason was both financial and because lower-league clubs could not attract the best youth players, and that the club would have a better chance developing 18 to 20 year olds under Warren Joyce.


title: Salford City F.C.

text: Salford secured their first ever win in the League Cup in the first game of the following season, defeating Rotherham United on penalties after a 1–1 draw. A week later, it was announced that following a meeting held by the EFL with representatives from both Salford and Portsmouth, that the EFL Trophy Final would now take place in 2021. Alexander departed the club on 12 October following a 2–2 draw at home to Tranmere Rovers; the club were 5th in the league and unbeaten in the opening five games, and co-owner Scholes took the job on an interim basis. Alexander declared himself "disappointed" but said he hoped he gave everybody at the club "some great times to remember". Scholes' first game in charge was a 1–0 defeat to Port Vale on 17 October, and he quickly ruled out taking the position on a permanent basis, citing the need for a more experienced manager. His first win came three days later with a 3–0 win against struggling Southend United.


title: Salford City F.C.

text: On 4 November, the club announced that former Salford player Richie Wellens, who was the manager of 2019–20 League Two champions Swindon Town, would be their new manager. In his first interview, Wellens revealed he had been hired get the team to play a more attacking style of football and to get them promoted to League One. The first game of his reign came on 7 November, with a 2–0 win against Hartlepool in the FA Cup first round courtesy of goals from Bruno Andrade and Dieseruvwe in extra-time. Wellens suffered his first loss as Salford manager in his first league game in charge, a 2–0 loss against Bolton Wanderers the following week, but won his first league game on 21 November against Bradford City, a 3–0 victory with two goals from Luke Burgess and another from Ian Henderson. On 13 March 2021, Wellens guided Salford to victory in the rescheduled EFL Trophy final; a 0–0 draw was followed by a penalty shootout, with Salford winning 4–2 after successful penalties by Burgess, Dieseruvwe, Brandon Thomas-Asante, and Jason Lowe. However, Wellens' time at the club came to an end on 22 March, departing Salford by mutual consent following a run of one win in eight games, with his final game in charge a 2–0 defeat to Cheltenham Town. Gary Bowyer was his replacement in charge, signing a deal until the end of the season.


title: Salford City F.C.

text: Bowyer was confirmed as Salford's permanent manager ahead of the club's third season in League Two, but managed the club's worst start to a campaign since the 2014 takeover, with no wins in the opening four games.


title: Salford City F.C.

text: Salford play their home games at Moor Lane, known as the Peninsula Stadium for sponsorship reasons, located in the Kersal area of Salford. The stadium has a capacity of 5,108. The club has played their games at Moor Lane since 1978.


title: Salford City F.C.

text: In December 2015, Salford City Council approved planning permission for the capacity of the ground to be increased from 2,163 to 5,172. In October of the following year, Salford unveiled plans to renovate the ground to comply with standards of the Football League, which would increase the capacity to 5,100. The plans included terraced stands behind the goals, a supporters' club with a capacity of 600, and executive seating.


title: Salford City F.C.

text: In December, it was revealed Salford faced objections from hundreds of local residents, and the newly formed Kersal Moor Residents' Association, regarding the club's proposals, with worries over traffic and parking. However, later that month, Salford City Council granted permission for the ground's development. This involved completely demolishing the Moor Lane ground, the club's home since 1978, and putting in four new stands. By the end of February, two stands had already been completed as the club tried to beat a March deadline with regards to ground grading. In May, the "iconic" main stand was demolished as building work progressed.


title: Salford City F.C.

text: On 19 October 2017, the newly built ground was renamed Peninsula Stadium for sponsorship reasons, and was unveiled by the "Class of '92"'s former Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson; the renaming was part a five-year deal with a local entrepreneur Peter Done, who founded the law employment experts Peninsula in Salford. The ground has floodlights in the shape of the club badge, while the terraces are "tight, steep, and covered", and has a leafy backdrop with a nearby church spire visible from within the ground.


title: Salford City F.C.

text: The club's colours are red, white and black, which were originally used in 1980. Prior to the change in ownership in 2014, the club played in tangerine and black, and had also previously worn tangerine and white. Many Salford supporters were unhappy with the change at the time, with the manager at the time, Phil Power, describing the issue as "delicate". The team also previously wore green in the 1970s, and used had various blue kits throughout the years; orange became their colour when dealing with financial difficulties and borrowed old kits from Blackpool.


title: Salford City F.C.

text: The club's logo also changed in 2014, replacing a rampant lion with one described as "bolder, more forward-facing". The current logo is said to replicate the shape of the hull of the ships in Salford's docks.


title: Salford City F.C.

text: The club adopted two mottos from the coat of arms of the City of Salford; the original motto ""Integrity & Industry"" features on the club kit, while the current city motto ""The Welfare of the People is the Highest Law"", translated from the Latin ""Salus Populi Suprema Lex"", is featured on the stadium walls.


title: Salford City F.C.

text: In 2013, Salford announced that the club's new main sponsors would be Manchester-based insurance brokers Champion Insurance. They were replaced in 2015 by LED Hut, and in 2017, the club signed a long-term deal with Soccer Saturday Super 6 to become the shirt sponsor. Upon the expiration of the deal, telecommunications company TalkTalk became Salford's lead sponsor until the end of the 2023–24 season.


title: Salford City F.C.

text: In 2015, the club announced their kits would be supplied by Umbro after signing a five-year contract. However, in 2019, Italian sportswear brand Kappa were confirmed to be the new manufacturer of Salford's kits on a three-year deal. After the conclusion of this arrangement, Castore became the manufacturer of Salford's kits from the 2022–23 season.


title: Salford City F.C.

text: At each home game the team walks out to The Pogues' cover of Dirty Old Town, the 1949 Ewan McColl song inspired by the singer's childhood in Salford. Following the takeover by the "Class of '92", Salford's fanbase and resulting attendance figures has steadily grown; ahead of their début season as a Football League club, Salford had sold over 1,900 season tickets, an increase of approximately 800 from the previous season. The rise in fanbase has in part been attributed to many Manchester United supporters opting to attend games at Salford due to the cost of attending games at Old Trafford and the relative affordability of a season ticket at Moor Lane.


title: Salford City F.C.

text: Since their promotion to the Football League, the club do not maintain any strong rivalries. However, a survey conducted in August 2019 suggested that supporters of the club consider near neighbours Oldham Athletic and Bolton Wanderers to be the club's main rivals. The survey also revealed that smaller rivalries with Accrington Stanley, Macclesfield Town and Crewe Alexandra also exist.


title: Salford City F.C.

text: Fans of the club also maintain a dislike for East London-based Leyton Orient due to the race for the 2018–19 National League title, which Orient eventually won. During the club's non-league days, they maintained rivalries with Curzon Ashton, Darlington, FC United of Manchester, Ashton United and Radcliffe Borough.


title: Salford City F.C.

text: The club has three mascots, a pride of anthropomorphic lions named Bobby, Billy, and Babs; the latter two were named as part of a competition in local schools.


title: Salford City F.C.

text: For many years, local businessman and former player Harold Brearley was in charge of Salford, helping take the club from local leagues into the semi-professional North West Counties League in 1982, and was instrumental in moving the club to their current home of Moor Lane in 1979. In June 2006, local businessman and former Salford player Darren Quick became the new Salford chairman, taking over from Ged Carter. In December 2013, Salford club president Dave Russell held secret talks with former Manchester United players Gary Neville and Ryan Giggs.


title: Salford City F.C.

text: In February 2014, it was revealed by a local newspaper, the "Salford Star", that as well as Gary Neville and Giggs, fellow former Manchester United players Nicky Butt, Phil Neville, and Paul Scholes, known collectively as the "Class of '92", were in talks with the club regarding "major investment". Gary Neville and Giggs were said to be concerned with the lack of talent produced at grassroots level, and chose Salford due to the club's proximity to The Cliff, the former training ground used by Manchester United when the pair were youngsters. With talks ongoing, four of the prospective buyers (Butt, Giggs, Gary Neville, and Scholes) attended the 2–0 home defeat to Curzon Ashton on 1 March. On 27 March, it was announced that, subject to Football Association and NPL approval, the group had agreed a deal to takeover the club, expected to be completed by the summer. In September, Singaporean businessman Peter Lim bought a 50% stake in the club, subject to FA approval. Lim said his involvement would be philanthropic, part of a long-term business partnership with Gary Neville.


title: Salford City F.C.

text: Ahead of the club's first season in the National League in 2018, the club received interest free loans totalling approximately £2.4m, allowing the club to invest in players such as Adam Rooney from Scottish team Aberdeen for a fee reported as £300k. In 2020, it was revealed that the owners had invested a further £2.5m to aid the club's push for promotion, as well as to develop the club off the pitch. Later that year, the club chose not to place staff on furlough amidst the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom despite potential savings of £350k.


title: Salford City F.C.

text: Ahead of the club's first ever FA Cup tie against Notts County in 2015, Salford were featured in a BBC One two-part documentary series titled "Class of 92: Out of Their League", which showcased the first season under the ownership of the group following their takeover the previous year. "The Independent" described it as "enthralling", while "The Daily Telegraph" described it as an "honest, appealing portrait" of non-league football. The BBC would later commission a second series in February 2016, describing the first as a "resounding success". A third series would air in 2017 on Sky Sports.


title: Salford City F.C.

text: In 2018, the club set up a women's team, named the Salford City Lionesses, with the team to play in the Greater Manchester Women's Football League. In the first game of the season, they recorded a 13–0 win against Urmston Meadowside, with Feiruz Abdullahi scoring six. In the club's first season, they won the league championship with a goal difference of +116 and reached three cup finals. The Lionesses competed in the Women's FA Cup for the first time during the 2020–21 season, losing in the preliminary round to Morecambe. The following season, Salford reached the FA Cup proper, advancing to second round before losing to Newcastle United.


title: Kim Philby

text: Harold Adrian Russell "Kim" Philby (1 January 191211 May 1988) was a British intelligence officer and a double agent for the Soviet Union. In 1963 he was revealed to be a member of the Cambridge Five, a spy ring which had divulged British secrets to the Soviets during World War II and in the early stages of the Cold War. Of the five, Philby is believed to have been most successful in providing secret information to the Soviets.


title: Kim Philby

text: Born in British India, Philby was educated at Westminster School and Trinity College, Cambridge. He was recruited by Soviet intelligence in 1934. After leaving Cambridge, Philby worked as a journalist, covering the Spanish Civil War and the Battle of France. In 1940 he began working for the United Kingdom's Secret Intelligence Service (SIS or MI6). By the end of the Second World War he had become a high-ranking member. In 1949 Philby was appointed first secretary to the British Embassy in Washington and served as chief British liaison with American intelligence agencies. During his career as an intelligence officer, he passed large amounts of intelligence to the Soviet Union, including a plot to subvert the communist regime of Albania.


title: Kim Philby

text: Philby was suspected of tipping off two other spies under suspicion of Soviet espionage, Donald Maclean and Guy Burgess, both of whom subsequently fled to Moscow in May 1951. Philby resigned from MI6 in July 1951. He was publicly exonerated in 1955, after which he resumed his career as both a journalist and a spy for SIS in Beirut, Lebanon. In January 1963, having finally been unmasked as a Soviet agent, Philby defected to Moscow, where he lived until his death in 1988.


title: Kim Philby

text: Born in Ambala, Punjab, British India, Harold Adrian Russell Philby was the son of Dora Johnston and St John Philby, an author, Arabist and explorer. St John was a member of the Indian Civil Service (ICS) and later a civil servant in Mesopotamia, and advisor to King Ibn Sa'ud of Saudi Arabia.


title: Kim Philby

text: Nicknamed "Kim" after the boy-spy in Rudyard Kipling's novel "Kim", Philby attended Aldro preparatory school, an all-boys school located in Shackleford near Godalming in Surrey, England, United Kingdom. In his early teens, he spent some time with the Bedouin in the desert of Saudi Arabia. Following in the footsteps of his father, Philby continued to Westminster School, which he left in 1928 at the age of 16. He won a scholarship to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he studied history and economics. He graduated in 1933 with a 2:1 degree in Economics.


title: Kim Philby

text: At Cambridge, Philby showed his "leaning towards communism," in the words of his father St John, who went on to write: "The only serious question is whether Kim definitely intended to be disloyal to the government while in its service."


title: Kim Philby

text: Upon Philby's graduation, Maurice Dobb, a fellow of King's College, Cambridge and tutor in Economics, introduced him to the World Federation for the Relief of the Victims of German Fascism, an organization based in Paris which attempted to aid the people victimized by Nazi Germany and provide education on oppositions to fascism. The organization was one of several fronts operated by German communist Willi Münzenberg, a member of the Reichstag who had fled to France in 1933.


title: Kim Philby

text: In Vienna, working to aid refugees from Germany, Philby met Litzi Friedmann (born Alice Kohlmann), a young Austrian communist of Hungarian Jewish origins. Philby admired the strength of her political convictions and later recalled that at their first meeting:


title: Kim Philby

text: A frank and direct person, Litzi came out and asked me how much money I had. I replied £100, which I hoped would last me about a year in Vienna. She made some calculations and announced, "That will leave you an excess of £25. You can give that to the International Organisation for Aid for Revolutionaries. We need it desperately." I liked her determination.


title: Kim Philby

text: Philby acted as a courier between Vienna and Prague, paying for the train tickets out of his remaining £75 and using his British passport to evade suspicion. He also delivered clothes and money to refugees. Following the Austrofascist victory in the Austrian Civil War, Philby and Friedmann married in February 1934, enabling her to escape to the United Kingdom with him two months later.


title: Kim Philby

text: It is possible that it was a Viennese-born friend of Friedmann's in London, Edith Tudor Hart – herself, at this time, a Soviet agent – who first approached Philby about the possibility of working for Soviet intelligence. In early 1934, Arnold Deutsch, a Soviet agent, was sent to University College London under the cover of a research appointment, but in reality had been assigned to recruit the brightest students from Britain's top universities. Philby had come to the Soviets' notice earlier that year in Vienna, where he had been involved in demonstrations against the government of Engelbert Dollfuss. In June 1934, Deutsch recruited him to the Soviet intelligence services. Philby later recalled:


title: Kim Philby

text: Lizzy came home one evening and told me that she had arranged for me to meet a "man of decisive importance". I questioned her about it but she would give me no details. The rendezvous took place in Regents Park. The man described himself as Otto. I discovered much later from a photograph in MI5 files that the name he went by was Arnold Deutsch. I think that he was of Czech origin; about 5 ft 7in, stout, with blue eyes and light curly hair. Though a convinced Communist, he had a strong humanistic streak. He hated London, adored Paris, and spoke of it with deeply loving affection. He was a man of considerable cultural background."


title: Kim Philby

text: Philby recommended to Deutsch several of his Cambridge contemporaries, including Donald Maclean, who at the time was working in the Foreign Office, as well as Guy Burgess, despite his personal reservations about Burgess's erratic personality.


title: Kim Philby

text: In London, Philby began a career as a journalist. He took a job at a monthly magazine, the "World Review of Reviews", for which he wrote a large number of articles and letters (sometimes under a variety of pseudonyms) and occasionally served as "acting editor."


title: Kim Philby

text: Philby continued to live in the United Kingdom with his wife for several years. At this point, however, Philby and Friedmann separated. They remained friends for many years following their separation and divorced only in 1946, just following the end of World War II. When the Germans threatened to overrun Paris in 1940, where she was then living at this time, Philby arranged for Friedmann's escape to Britain. In 1936 he began working at a failing trade magazine, the "Anglo-Russian Trade Gazette", as editor. After the magazine's owner changed the paper's role to covering Anglo-German trade, Philby engaged in a concerted effort to make contact with Germans such as Joachim von Ribbentrop, at that time the German ambassador in London. He became a member of the Anglo-German Fellowship, an organization aiming at rebuilding and supporting a friendly relationship between Germany and the United Kingdom. The Anglo-German Fellowship, at this time, was supported both by the British and German governments, and Philby made many trips to Berlin.


title: Kim Philby

text: In February 1937, Philby travelled to Seville, Spain, then embroiled in a bloody civil war triggered by the "coup d'état" of Falangist forces under General Francisco Franco against the democratic government of President Manuel Azaña. Philby worked at first as a freelance journalist; from May 1937, he served as a first-hand correspondent for "The Times", reporting from the headquarters of the pro-Franco forces. He also began working for both the Soviet and British intelligence, which usually consisted of posting letters in a crude code to a fictitious girlfriend, Mlle Dupont in Paris, for the Russians. He used a simpler system for MI6 delivering post at Hendaye, France, for the British embassy in Paris. When visiting Paris after the war, he was shocked to discover that the address that he used for Mlle Dupont was that of the Soviet embassy. His controller in Paris, the Latvian Ozolin-Haskins (code name Pierre), was shot in Moscow in 1937 during Joseph Stalin's Great Purge. His successor, Boris Bazarov, suffered the same fate two years later during the purges.


title: Kim Philby

text: Both the British and the Soviets were interested in analyzing the combat performance of the new Messerschmitt Bf 109 fighter planes and Panzer I and Panzer II tanks deployed with Falangist forces in Spain. Philby told the British, after a direct question to Franco, that German troops would never be permitted to cross Spain to attack Gibraltar. Philby's Soviet controller at the time, Theodore Maly, reported in April 1937 to the NKVD that he had personally briefed Philby on the need "to discover the system of guarding Franco and his entourage". Maly was one of the Soviet Union's most powerful and influential illegal controllers and recruiters. With the goal of potentially arranging Franco's assassination, Philby was instructed to report on vulnerable points in Franco's security and recommend ways to gain access to him and his staff. However, such an act was never a real possibility; upon debriefing Philby in London on 24 May 1937, Maly wrote to the NKVD, "Though devoted and ready to sacrifice himself, [Philby] does not possess the physical courage and other qualities necessary for this [assassination] attempt."


title: Kim Philby

text: In December 1937, during the Battle of Teruel, a Republican shell hit just in front of the car in which Philby was travelling with the correspondents Edward J. Neil of the Associated Press, Bradish Johnson of "Newsweek", and Ernest Sheepshanks of Reuters. Johnson was killed outright, and Neil and Sheepshanks soon died of their injuries. Philby suffered only a minor head wound. As a result of this accident, Philby, who was well-liked by the Nationalist forces whose victories he trumpeted, was awarded the Red Cross of Military Merit by Franco on 2 March 1938. Philby found that the award proved helpful in obtaining access to fascist circles:


title: Kim Philby

text: "Before then," he later wrote, "there had been a lot of criticism of British journalists from Franco officers who seemed to think that the British in general must be a lot of Communists because so many were fighting with the International Brigades. After I had been wounded and decorated by Franco himself, I became known as 'the English-decorated-by-Franco' and all sorts of doors opened to me."


title: Kim Philby

text: In 1938, Walter Krivitsky (born Samuel Ginsberg), a former GRU officer in Paris who had defected to France the previous year, travelled to the United States and published an account of his time in "Stalin's secret service". He testified before the Dies Committee (later to become the House Un-American Activities Committee) regarding Soviet espionage within the US. In 1940 he was interviewed by MI5 officers in London, led by Jane Archer. Krivitsky claimed that two Soviet intelligence agents had penetrated the Foreign Office and that a third Soviet intelligence agent had worked as a journalist for a British newspaper during the civil war in Spain. No connection with Philby was made at the time, and Krivitsky was found shot in a Washington hotel room the following year.


title: Kim Philby

text: Alexander Orlov (born Lev Feldbin; code-name Swede), Philby's controller in Madrid, who had once met him in Perpignan, France, also defected. To protect his family, still living in the USSR, Orlov said nothing about Philby, an agreement Stalin respected. On a short trip back from Spain, Philby tried to recruit Flora Solomon as a Soviet agent; she was the daughter of a Russian banker and gold dealer, a relative of the Rothschilds, and wife of a London stockbroker. At the same time, Burgess was trying to get her into MI6. But the "rezident" (Russian term for spymaster) in France, probably Pierre at this time, suggested to Moscow that he suspected Philby's motives. Solomon introduced Philby to the woman who would become Philby's second wife, Aileen Furse. Solomon went to work for the British retailer Marks & Spencer.


title: Kim Philby

text: In July 1939, Philby returned to "The Times" office in London. When Britain declared war on Germany in September 1939, Philby's contact with his Soviet controllers was lost and Philby failed to attend the meetings that were necessary for his work. During the Phoney War from September 1939 until the Dunkirk evacuation, Philby worked as "The Times" first-hand correspondent with the British Expeditionary Force headquarters. After being evacuated from Boulogne on 21 May, he returned to France in mid-June and began representing "The Daily Telegraph" in addition to "The Times". He briefly reported from Cherbourg and Brest, sailing for Plymouth less than 24 hours before France surrendered to Germany in June 1940.


title: Kim Philby

text: In 1940, on the recommendation of Burgess, Philby joined MI6's Section D, a secret organisation charged with investigating how enemies might be attacked through non-military means. Philby and Burgess ran a training course for would-be saboteurs at Brickendonbury Manor in Hertfordshire. His time at Section D, however, was short-lived; the "tiny, ineffective, and slightly comic" section was soon absorbed by the Special Operations Executive (SOE) in the summer of 1940. Burgess was arrested in September for drunken driving and was subsequently fired, while Philby was appointed as an instructor on clandestine propaganda at the SOE's finishing school for agents at the Estate of Lord Montagu in Beaulieu, Hampshire.


title: Kim Philby

text: Philby's role as an instructor of sabotage agents again brought him to the attention of the Soviet Joint State Political Directorate (OGPU). This role allowed him to conduct sabotage and instruct agents on how to properly conduct sabotage. The new London "rezident", Ivan Chichayev (code-name Vadim), re-established contact and asked for a list of names of British agents being trained to enter the Soviet Union. Philby replied that none had been sent and that none was undergoing training at that time. This statement was underlined twice in red and marked with two question marks, clearly indicating their confusion and questioning of this, by disbelieving staff at Moscow Central in the Lubyanka, according to Genrikh Borovik, who saw the telegrams much later in the KGB archives.


title: Kim Philby

text: Philby provided Stalin with advance warning of Operation Barbarossa and of the Japanese intention to strike into southeast Asia instead of attacking the Soviet Union as Hitler had urged. The first was ignored as a provocation, but the second, when this was confirmed by the Russo-German journalist and spy in Tokyo, Richard Sorge, contributed to Stalin's decision to begin transporting troops from the Far East in time for the counteroffensive around Moscow.


title: Kim Philby

text: By September 1941, Philby began working for Section Five of MI6, a section responsible for offensive counter-intelligence. On the strength of his knowledge and experience of Franco's Spain, Philby was put in charge of the subsection which dealt with Spain and Portugal. This entailed responsibility for a network of undercover operatives in several cities such as Madrid, Lisbon, Gibraltar and Tangier. At this time, the German "Abwehr" was active in Spain, particularly around the British naval base of Gibraltar, which its agents hoped to watch with many cameras and radars to track Allied supply ships in the Western Mediterranean. Thanks to British counter-intelligence efforts, of which Philby's Iberian subsection formed a significant part, the project (code-named Bodden) never came to fruition.


title: Kim Philby

text: During 1942–43, Philby's responsibilities were then expanded to include North Africa and Italy, and he was made the deputy head of Section Five under Major Felix Cowgill, an army officer seconded to SIS. In early 1944, as it became clear that the Soviet Union was likely to once more prove a significant adversary to Britain, SIS re-activated Section Nine, which dealt with anti-communist efforts. In late 1944 Philby, on instructions from his Soviet handler, maneuvered through the system successfully to replace Cowgill as head of Section Nine. Charles Arnold-Baker, an officer of German birth (born Wolfgang von Blumenthal) working for Richard Gatty in Belgium and later transferred to the Norwegian/Swedish border, voiced many suspicions of Philby and Philby's intentions but was ignored time and time again.


title: Kim Philby

text: While working in Section Five, Philby had become acquainted with James Jesus Angleton, a young American counter-intelligence officer working in liaison with SIS in London. Angleton, later chief of the Central Intelligence Agency's (CIA) Counterintelligence Staff, became suspicious of Philby when he failed to pass on information relating to a British agent executed by the Gestapo in Germany. It later emerged that the agent—known as Schmidt—had also worked as an informant for the "Rote Kapelle" organisation, which sent information to both London and Moscow. Nevertheless, Angleton's suspicions went unheard.


title: Kim Philby

text: In late summer 1943, the SIS provided the GRU an official report on the activities of German agents in Bulgaria and Romania, soon to be liberated by the Soviet Union. The NKVD complained to Cecil Barclay, the SIS representative in Moscow, that information had been withheld. Barclay reported the complaint to London. Philby claimed to have overheard discussion of this by chance and sent a report to his controller. This turned out to be identical with Barclay's dispatch, convincing the NKVD that Philby had seen the full Barclay report. A similar lapse occurred with a report from the Imperial Japanese Embassy in Moscow sent to Tokyo. The NKVD received the same report from Richard Sorge but with an extra paragraph claiming that Hitler might seek a separate peace with the Soviet Union. These lapses by Philby aroused intense suspicion in Moscow.


title: Kim Philby

text: Elena Modrzhinskaya at GUGB headquarters in Moscow assessed all material from the Cambridge Five. She noted that they produced an extraordinary wealth of information on German war plans but next to nothing on the repeated question of British penetration of Soviet intelligence in either London or Moscow. Philby had repeated his claim that there were no such agents. She asked, "Could the SIS really be such fools they failed to notice suitcase-loads of papers leaving the office? Could they have overlooked Philby's Communist wife?" Modrzhinskaya concluded that all were double agents, working essentially for the British.


title: Kim Philby

text: A more serious incident occurred in August 1945, when Konstantin Volkov, an NKVD agent and vice-consul in Istanbul, requested political asylum in Britain for himself and his wife. For a large sum of money, Volkov offered the names of three Soviet agents inside Britain, two of whom worked in the Foreign Office and a third who worked in counter-espionage in London. Philby was given the task of dealing with Volkov by British intelligence. He warned the Soviets of the attempted defection and travelled to Istanbul—ostensibly to handle the matter on behalf of SIS but, in reality, to ensure that Volkov had been neutralised. By the time he arrived in Turkey, three weeks later, Volkov had been removed to Moscow.


title: Kim Philby

text: The intervention of Philby in the affair and the subsequent capture of Volkov by the Soviets might have seriously compromised Philby's position. Volkov's defection had been discussed with the British Embassy in Ankara on telephones which turned out to have been tapped by Soviet intelligence. Volkov had insisted that all written communications about him take place by bag rather than by telegraph, causing a delay in reaction that might plausibly have given the Soviets time to uncover his plans. Philby was thus able to evade blame and detection.


title: Kim Philby

text: A month later Igor Gouzenko, a cipher clerk in Ottawa, took political asylum in Canada and gave the Royal Canadian Mounted Police names of agents operating within the British Empire that were known to him. When Jane Archer (who had interviewed Krivitsky) was appointed to Philby's section he moved her off investigatory work in case she became aware of his past. He later wrote "she had got a tantalising scrap of information about a young English journalist whom the Soviet intelligence had sent to Spain during the Civil War. And here she was plunked down in my midst!"


title: Kim Philby

text: Philby, "employed in a Department of the Foreign Office", was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 1946.


title: Kim Philby

text: Years after the war, Sir Hardy Amies, who has served as an intelligence officer during the war, recalled that Philby was in his mess and on being asked what the infamous spy was like, Hardy quipped, "He was always trying to get information out of me—most significantly the name of my tailor".


title: Kim Philby

text: In February 1947, Philby was appointed head of British intelligence for Turkey, and posted to Istanbul with his second wife, Aileen, and their family. His public position was that of First Secretary at the British Consulate; in reality, his intelligence work required overseeing British agents and working with the Turkish security services.


title: Kim Philby

text: Philby planned to infiltrate five or six groups of émigrés into Soviet Armenia or Soviet Georgia. But efforts among the expatriate community in Paris produced just two recruits. Turkish intelligence took them to a border crossing into Georgia but soon afterwards shots were heard. Another effort was made using a Turkish gulet for a seaborne landing, but it never left port. He was implicated in a similar campaign in Albania. Colonel David Smiley, an aristocratic Guards officer who had helped Enver Hoxha and his Communist guerillas to liberate Albania, now prepared to remove Hoxha. He trained Albanian commandos—some of whom were former Nazi collaborators—in Libya or Malta. From 1947, they infiltrated the southern mountains to build support for former King Zog.


title: Kim Philby

text: The first three missions, overland from Greece, were trouble-free. Larger numbers were landed by sea and air under Operation Valuable, which continued until 1951, increasingly under the influence of the newly formed CIA. Stewart Menzies, head of SIS, disliked the idea, which was promoted by former SOE men now in SIS. Most infiltrators were caught by the Sigurimi, the Albanian Security Service. Clearly there had been leaks and Philby was later suspected as one of the leakers. His own comment was "I do not say that people were happy under the regime but the CIA underestimated the degree of control that the Authorities had over the country." Philby later wrote of his attitude towards the operation in Albania:


title: Kim Philby

text: The agents we sent into Albania were armed men intent on murder, sabotage and assassination ... They knew the risks they were running. I was serving the interests of the Soviet Union and those interests required that these men were defeated. To the extent that I helped defeat them, even if it caused their deaths, I have no regrets.


title: Kim Philby

text: Aileen Philby had suffered since childhood from psychological problems which caused her to inflict injuries upon herself. In 1948, troubled by the heavy drinking and frequent depressions that had become a feature of her husband's life in Istanbul, she experienced a breakdown of this nature, staging an accident and injecting herself with urine and insulin to cause skin disfigurations. She was sent to a clinic in Switzerland to recover. Upon her return to Istanbul in late 1948, she was badly burned in an incident with a charcoal stove and returned to Switzerland. Shortly afterward, Philby was moved to the job as chief SIS representative in Washington, D.C., with his family.


title: Kim Philby

text: In September 1949, the Philbys arrived in the United States. Officially, his post was that of First Secretary to the British Embassy; in reality, he served as chief British intelligence representative in Washington. His office oversaw a large amount of urgent and top-secret communications between the United States and London. Philby was also responsible for liaising with the CIA and promoting "more aggressive Anglo-American intelligence operations". A leading figure within the CIA was Philby's wary former colleague, James Jesus Angleton, with whom he once again found himself working closely. Angleton remained suspicious of Philby, but lunched with him every week in Washington.


title: Kim Philby

text: A more serious threat to Philby's position had come to light. During the summer of 1945, a Soviet cipher clerk had reused a one-time pad to transmit intelligence traffic. This mistake made it possible to break the normally impregnable code. Contained in the traffic (intercepted and decrypted as part of the Venona project) was information that documents had been sent to Moscow from the British Embassy in Washington. The intercepted messages revealed that the British Embassy source (identified as "Homer") travelled to New York City to meet his Soviet contact twice a week. Philby had been briefed on the situation shortly before reaching Washington in 1949; it was clear to Philby that the agent was Donald Maclean, who worked in the British Embassy at the time and whose wife, Melinda, lived in New York. Philby had to help discover the identity of "Homer" but also wished to protect Maclean.


title: Kim Philby

text: In January 1950, on evidence provided by the Venona intercepts, Soviet atomic spy Klaus Fuchs was arrested. His arrest led to others, Harry Gold, a courier with whom Fuchs had worked, David Greenglass and Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. The investigation into the British Embassy leak continued and the stress of it was exacerbated by the arrival in Washington, in October 1950, of Guy Burgess—Philby's unstable and dangerously alcoholic fellow Soviet spy.


title: Kim Philby

text: Burgess, who had been given a post as Second Secretary at the British Embassy, took up residence in the Philby family home and rapidly set about causing offence to all and sundry. Aileen Philby resented him and disliked his presence; Americans were offended by his "natural superciliousness" and "utter contempt for the whole pyramid of values, attitudes, and courtesies of the American way of life". J. Edgar Hoover complained that Burgess used British Embassy automobiles to avoid arrest when he cruised Washington in pursuit of homosexual encounters. His dissolution had a troubling effect on Philby; the morning after a particularly disastrous and drunken party, a guest returning to collect his car heard voices upstairs and found "Kim and Guy in the bedroom drinking champagne. They had already been down to the Embassy but being unable to work had come back".


title: Kim Philby

text: Burgess's presence was awkward for Philby, yet it was potentially dangerous for Philby to leave him unsupervised. The situation in Washington was tense. From April 1950, Maclean had been the prime suspect in the investigation into the Embassy leak. Philby had undertaken to devise an escape plan which would warn Maclean, in England, of the intense suspicion he was under and arrange for him to flee. Burgess had to get to London to warn Maclean, who was under surveillance. In early May 1951, Burgess got three speeding tickets in a single day—then pleaded diplomatic immunity, causing an official complaint to be made to the British Ambassador. Burgess was sent back to England, where he met Maclean in his London club.


title: Kim Philby

text: The SIS planned to interrogate Maclean on 28 May 1951. On 23 May, concerned that Maclean had not yet fled, Philby wired Burgess, ostensibly about his Lincoln convertible abandoned in the Embassy car park. "If he did not act at once it would be too late," the telegram read, "because [Philby] would send his car to the scrap heap. There was nothing more [he] could do." On 25 May, Burgess drove Maclean from his home at Tatsfield, Surrey to Southampton, where both boarded the steamship "Falaise" to France and then proceeded to Moscow.


title: Kim Philby

text: Burgess had intended to aid Maclean in his escape, not accompany him in it. The "affair of the missing diplomats," as it was referred to before Burgess and Maclean surfaced in Moscow, attracted a great deal of public attention, and Burgess's disappearance, which identified him as complicit in Maclean's espionage, deeply compromised Philby's position. Under a cloud of suspicion raised by his highly visible and intimate association with Burgess, Philby returned to London. There, he underwent MI5 interrogation aimed at ascertaining whether he had acted as a "third man" in Burgess and Maclean's spy ring. In July 1951, he resigned from MI6, preempting his all-but-inevitable dismissal.


title: Kim Philby

text: Even after Philby's departure from MI6, speculation regarding his possible Soviet affiliations continued. Interrogated repeatedly regarding his intelligence work and his connection with Burgess, he continued to deny that he had acted as a Soviet agent. From 1952, Philby struggled to find work as a journalist, eventually—in August 1954—accepting a position with a diplomatic newsletter called the "Fleet Street Letter". Lacking access to material of value and out of touch with Soviet intelligence, he all but ceased to operate as a Soviet agent.


title: Kim Philby

text: On 25 October 1955, following revelations in "The New York Times", Labour MP Marcus Lipton used parliamentary privilege to ask Prime Minister Anthony Eden if he was determined "to cover up at all costs the dubious third man activities of Mr Harold Philby..." This was reported in the British press, leading Philby to threaten legal action against Lipton if he repeated his accusations outside Parliament. Lipton later withdrew his comments. This retraction came about when Philby was officially cleared by Foreign Secretary Harold Macmillan on 7 November. The minister told the House of Commons, "I have no reason to conclude that Mr. Philby has at any time betrayed the interests of his country, or to identify him with the so-called 'Third Man', if indeed there was one." Following this, Philby gave a press conference in which—calmly, confidently, and without the stammer he had struggled with since childhood—he reiterated his innocence, declaring, "I have never been a communist."


title: Kim Philby

text: After being exonerated, Philby was no longer employed by MI6 and Soviet intelligence lost all contact with him. In August 1956 he was sent to Beirut as a Middle East correspondent for "The Observer" and "The Economist". There, his journalism served as cover for renewed work for MI6. Philby wrote under his own name and under the pen name "Charles Garner" when writing about "fluffy" subjects.


title: Kim Philby

text: In Lebanon, Philby at first lived in Mahalla Jamil, his father's large household located in the village of Ajaltoun, just outside Beirut. Following the departure of his father and stepbrothers for Saudi Arabia, Philby continued to live alone in Ajaltoun, but took a flat in Beirut after beginning an affair with Eleanor, the Seattle-born wife of "New York Times" correspondent Sam Pope Brewer. Following Aileen Philby's death in 1957 and Eleanor's subsequent divorce from Brewer, Philby and Eleanor were married in London in 1959 and set up house together in Beirut. From 1960, Philby's formerly marginal work as a journalist became more substantial and he frequently travelled throughout the Middle East, including Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait and Yemen.


title: Kim Philby

text: In 1961, Anatoliy Golitsyn, a major in the First Chief Directorate of the KGB, defected to the United States from his diplomatic post in Helsinki. Golitsyn offered the CIA revelations of Soviet agents within American and British intelligence services. Following his debriefing in the US, Golitsyn was sent to SIS for further questioning. The head of MI6, Dick White, only recently transferred from MI5, had suspected Philby as the "third man". Golitsyn proceeded to confirm White's suspicions about Philby's role. Nicholas Elliott, an MI6 officer recently stationed in Beirut who was a friend of Philby's and had previously believed in his innocence, was tasked with attempting to secure Philby's full confession.


title: Kim Philby

text: It is unclear whether Philby had been alerted, but Eleanor noted that as 1962 wore on, expressions of tension in his life "became worse and were reflected in bouts of deep depression and drinking". She recalled returning home to Beirut from a sight-seeing trip in Jordan to find Philby "hopelessly drunk and incoherent with grief on the terrace of the flat," mourning the death of a little pet fox which had fallen from the balcony. When Nicholas Elliott met Philby in late 1962, the first time since Golitsyn's defection, he found Philby too drunk to stand and with a bandaged head; he had fallen repeatedly and cracked his skull on a bathroom radiator, requiring stitches.


title: Kim Philby

text: Philby told Elliott that he was "half expecting" to see him. Elliott confronted him, saying, "I once looked up to you, Kim. My God, how I despise you now. I hope you've enough decency left to understand why." Prompted by Elliott's accusations, Philby confirmed the charges of espionage and described his intelligence activities on behalf of the Soviets. However, when Elliott asked him to sign a written statement, he hesitated and requested a delay in the interrogation. Another meeting was scheduled to take place in the last week of January. It has since been suggested that the whole confrontation with Elliott had been a charade to convince the KGB that Philby had to be brought back to Moscow, where he could serve as a British penetration agent of Moscow Centre.


title: Kim Philby

text: On the evening of 23 January 1963, Philby vanished from Beirut, failing to meet his wife for a dinner party at the home of Glencairn Balfour Paul, First Secretary at the British Embassy. The "Dolmatova", a Soviet freighter bound for Odessa, had left Beirut that morning so abruptly that cargo was left scattered over the docks; Philby claimed that he left Beirut on board this ship. However, others maintain that he escaped through Syria, overland to Soviet Armenia and thence to Russia.


title: Kim Philby

text: It was not until 1 July 1963 that Philby's flight to Moscow was officially confirmed. On 30 July, Soviet officials announced that they had granted him political asylum in the USSR, along with Soviet citizenship. When the news broke, MI6 came under criticism for failing to anticipate and block Philby's defection, though Elliott was to claim he could not have prevented Philby's flight. Journalist Ben Macintyre, author of several works on espionage, speculated that MI6 might have left open the opportunity for Philby to flee to Moscow to avoid an embarrassing public trial. Philby himself thought this might have been the case.


title: Kim Philby

text: Upon his arrival in Moscow in January 1963, Philby discovered that he was not a colonel in the KGB, as he had been led to believe. He was paid 500 rubles a month (the average Soviet salary in 1960 was 80.6 rubles a month and 122 in 1970) and his family was not immediately able to join him in exile. Philby was under virtual house arrest, guarded, with all visitors screened by the KGB. It was ten years before he was given a minor role in the training of KGB recruits.


title: Kim Philby

text: Mikhail Lyubimov, his closest KGB contact, explained that this was to guard his safety, but later admitted that the real reason was the KGB's fear that Philby would return to London.


title: Kim Philby

text: Secret files released to the National Archives in late 2020 indicated that the UK government had intentionally conducted a campaign to keep Philby's spying confidential "to minimise political embarrassment" and prevent the publication of his memoirs, according to a report by "The Guardian". Nonetheless, the information was publicized in 1967 when Philby granted an interview to Murray Sayle of "The Times" in Moscow. Philby confirmed that he had worked for the KGB and that "his purpose in life was to destroy imperialism".


title: Kim Philby

text: Philby occupied himself by writing his memoirs, which were published in the UK in 1968 under the title "My Silent War"; it was not published in the Soviet Union until 1980. In the book, Philby says that his loyalties were always with the communists; he considered himself not to have been a double agent but "a straight penetration agent working in the Soviet interest". Philby continued to read "The Times", which was not generally available in the USSR, listened to the BBC World Service, and was an avid follower of cricket.


title: Kim Philby

text: Philby's award of the Order of the British Empire was cancelled and annulled in 1965. Philby claimed publicly in January 1988 that he did not regret his decisions and that he missed nothing about England except some friends, Colman's mustard, and Lea & Perrins Worcestershire sauce. Despite reports to the contrary, Philby's wife claimed in a 1997 interview that the idea of Philby becoming depressed and destitute in Moscow was "a myth". In the same interview, she confirmed that Philby was a heavy drinker when they first met, but later became sober. Certain aspects of Soviet life did indeed disappoint Philby, with his wife claiming he was "particularly irritated by Brezhnev".


title: Kim Philby

text: Philby found work in the early 1970s in the KGB's Active Measures Department churning out fabricated documents. Working from genuine unclassified and public CIA or US State Department documents, Philby inserted "sinister" paragraphs regarding US plans. The KGB would stamp the documents "top secret" and begin their circulation. For the Soviets, Philby was an invaluable asset, ensuring the correct use of idiomatic and diplomatic English phrases in their disinformation efforts.


title: Kim Philby

text: Philby died of heart failure in Moscow in 1988. He was given a hero's funeral, and posthumously awarded numerous medals by the Soviets: Order of Lenin, Order of the Red Banner, Order of Friendship of Peoples, Order of the Great Patriotic War, Lenin Medal, Jubilee Medal "Forty Years of Victory in the Great Patriotic War 1941–1945".


title: Kim Philby

text: In a 1981 lecture to the East German security service (the Stasi), Philby attributed the failure of the British Secret Service to unmask him as due in great part to the British class system—it was inconceivable that one "born into the ruling class of the British Empire" would be a traitor—to the amateurish and incompetent nature of the organisation, and to so many in MI6 having so much to lose if he was proven to be a spy. He had the policy of never confessing—a document in his own handwriting was dismissed as a forgery. He said that at the time of his recruitment as a spy there were no prospects of his being useful; he was instructed to make his way into the Secret Service, which took years, starting with journalism and building up contacts in the establishment. He said that there was no discipline there; he made friends with the archivist, which enabled him for years to take secret documents home, many unrelated to his own work, and bring them back the next day; his handler took and photographed them overnight. When he was instructed to remove and replace his boss, Felix Cowgill, he asked if it was proposed "to shoot him or something", but was told to use bureaucratic intrigue. He said "It was a very dirty story—but after all our work does imply getting dirty hands from time to time but we do it for a cause that is not dirty in any way". Commenting on his sabotage of the operation to secretly send thousands of Albanian anti-communists into Albania to overthrow the communist government, which led to many being killed, Philby rebutted that he helped prevent another World War.


title: Kim Philby

text: In February 1934, Philby married Litzi Friedmann, an Austrian Jewish communist whom he had met in Vienna. They subsequently moved to Britain; however, as Philby assumed the role of a fascist sympathiser, they separated. Litzi lived in Paris before returning to London for the duration of the war; she ultimately settled in East Germany.


title: Kim Philby

text: While working as a correspondent in Spain, Philby began an affair with Frances Doble, Lady Lindsay-Hogg, an actress and aristocratic divorcée who was an admirer of Franco and Hitler. They travelled together in Spain through August 1939.


title: Kim Philby

text: In 1940, he began living with Aileen Furse in London. Their first three children, Josephine, John and Tommy Philby, were born between 1941 and 1944. In 1946, Philby finally arranged a formal divorce from Litzi. He and Aileen were married on 25 September 1946, while Aileen was pregnant with their fourth child, Miranda. Their fifth child, Harry George, was born in 1950. Aileen suffered from psychiatric problems, which grew more severe during the period of poverty and suspicion following the flight of Burgess and Maclean. She lived separately from Philby, settling with their children in Crowborough while he lived first in London and later in Beirut. Weakened by alcoholism and frequent sickness, she died of influenza in December 1957.


title: Kim Philby

text: In 1956, Philby began an affair with Eleanor Brewer, the wife of "New York Times" correspondent Sam Pope Brewer. Following Eleanor's divorce, the couple married in January 1959. After Philby defected to the Soviet Union in 1963, Eleanor visited him in Moscow. In November 1964, after a visit to the United States, she returned, intending to settle permanently. In her absence, Philby had begun an affair with Donald Maclean's wife, Melinda. He and Eleanor divorced and she departed Moscow in May 1965. Melinda left Maclean and briefly lived with Philby in Moscow. In 1968, she returned to Maclean.


title: Kim Philby

text: In 1971, Philby married Rufina Pukhova, a Russo-Polish woman 20 years his junior, with whom he lived until his death in 1988.


title: Ae Dil Hai Mushkil

text: Ae Dil Hai Mushkil (), also known as ADHM, is a 2016 Indian Hindi-language musical romantic drama film directed, produced and written by Karan Johar. The music is composed by Pritam with lyrics by Amitabh Bhattacharya. The film stars Ranbir Kapoor, Anushka Sharma and Aishwarya Rai Bachchan in lead roles.


title: Ae Dil Hai Mushkil

text: "Ae Dil Hai Mushkil" released worldwide on 28 October 2016 coinciding with the festival of Diwali. Despite having clashed with Ajay Devgn's "Shivaay", the film went on to gross worldwide, thus becoming a blockbuster at the box office. It received mixed-to-positive reviews from critics upon release, with praise for its direction, music, cinematography, and performances of the cast, with particular praise directed towards Sharma, Kapoor and Rai’s performances.


title: Ae Dil Hai Mushkil

text: At the 62nd Filmfare Awards, "Ae Dil Hai Mushkil" received a leading 9 nominations (tying with "Udta Punjab"), including Best Film, Best Director (Johar), Best Actress (Sharma) and Best Actor (Kapoor), and won 4 awards, including Best Music Director (Pritam), Best Lyricist (Bhattacharya for "Channa Mereya") and Best Male Playback Singer (Arijit Singh for "Ae Dil Hai Mushkil").


title: Ae Dil Hai Mushkil

text: The film begins with the interview of Ayan Sanger, a singer who has newly acquired fame with his non-filmy songs. He tells the story of his experience of love in a flashback. A few years ago, in London, a chance meeting in a disco between Ayan and Alizeh happens and they hook up with each other. They get to know about each other and become friends. Later, when they discover their respective partners are cheating on them, they break up with their lovers: Ayan with Lisa D'Souza and Alizeh with "Dr." Faisal Khan and the two go to Paris to spend a week together. Aayan falls in love with Alizeh but does not tell her while she considers him to be only a "friend". One day, Alizeh stumbles upon DJ Ali, her ex-boyfriend/lover, who wants to reconcile. Partially confused, but still in love with him, Alizeh decides to go with DJ Ali, and so unintentionally stops hanging out with Ayan and they cease communication.


title: Ae Dil Hai Mushkil

text: A few days later, Alizeh calls and invites Ayan to her wedding with DJ Ali in Lucknow. Ayan is shaken on hearing this but reluctantly agrees to the invitation. At the wedding, he tells Alizeh he loves her but she rejects his feelings causing Ayan to leave the ceremony heartbroken. At the airport to board a flight to Dubai, he meets Saba Taliyar Khan, a poet, who is leaving for Vienna. She consoles Ayan and gives him a book with her poetry and number on it. Ayan reads that poetry and is moved by it. He calls her after three months stating that he is in Vienna and wants to meet her. They meet. He learns that Saba is divorced and has no place for love in her heart. They get into a relationship. Later, at an art gallery, he meets Saba's ex-husband, Tahir Taliyar Khan, who tells him that one-sided love is not a weakness but rather empowering as it isn't shared as one doesn't even need the presence of the person one is in love with to keep loving them regardless. Ayan, who had blocked Alizeh from contacting him in all ways, finally calls and reconnects with her on being inspired by these words. Alizeh feels really happy and tells him that she missed their friendship. He begins to send pictures of Saba to her to try and induce jealousy while Alizeh tells him about her happy life with Ali and assumes that he has moved on.


title: Ae Dil Hai Mushkil

text: After a few days, Alizeh informs Ayan that she is coming to Vienna and wants to meet him. Ayan invites her for dinner with Saba to provoke Alizeh and make her feel jealous which Saba notices. Before she leaves, Ayan confronts her that she has no feelings and is heartless. Alizeh says that she does love Ayan but not in a romantic way. They have a verbal fight and then he walks away. He goes to Saba, who hugs Ayan one last time and tells him that she really started loving him and that before it gets more intense, they should part their ways. She fears that she will get hurt realizing that she will never get the love she saw in Ayan's eyes for Alizeh. Their relationship ends and Ayan leaves.


title: Ae Dil Hai Mushkil

text: Ayan continues to harbour love for Alizeh and becomes a famous singer with his channel. He meets Ali one day and realizes that Ali and Alizeh are no longer together. Ali tells Ayan that even though Alizeh loved him, she was not able to get the love she thought she deserved. Ayan, concerned, goes to Alizeh's favourite spot and waits for two days there, hoping that she arrives. Alizeh meets him there and tells Ayan that she is diagnosed with stage four cancer and will not live much longer. Ayan is heartbroken but they try to make the best of their time together. Ayan tries to make Alizeh love him, to no avail. This leads to a fight between the two, and Alizeh decides to leave Ayan as he cannot understand that she cannot fake her feelings for Ayan just to make him feel happy. Next morning Ayan tries to search for Alizeh, apparently reaching the airport and thus fulfilling her last wish also before death. Eventually, Ayan makes peace with the fact that he and Alizeh can at least be friends and nothing more. The screen blacks out and comes back to the present where Ayan, still a popular singer, is giving an interview based on the love of his life. Ayan sings the song "Channa Mereya", which is inspired by his one-sided love story, and finishes the interview.


title: Ae Dil Hai Mushkil

text: "Ae Dil Hai Mushkil" was first announced in November 2014. At the time, writer-director Karan Johar, who had previously helmed "Student of the Year" (2012), said that for the past year and a half, he had been developing a story that he needed to work on for several months. However, while he was in New York, the idea for "Ae Dil Hai Mushkil" (named after a song from the 1956 film "C.I.D." starring Dev Anand and Waheeda Rehman) came to him and he wrote the screenplay in 30 days. When he came back to India, he spoke to the three lead actors and they all signed on immediately.


title: Ae Dil Hai Mushkil

text: Johar stated that he was motivated to cast Ranbir Kapoor and Anushka Sharma in the film after getting to know them as a co-star in Anurag Kashyap's "Bombay Velvet" (2015), which marked Johar's leading screen debut.


title: Ae Dil Hai Mushkil

text: Johar added that he was excited to cast Aishwarya Rai Bachchan after several unsuccessful attempts to cast her in his previous films "Kuch Kuch Hota Hai" (1998), "Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham..." (2001), "Kal Ho Naa Ho" (2003) and "Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna" (2006).


title: Ae Dil Hai Mushkil

text: Fawad Khan, who had recently appeared in Johar-produced "Kapoor & Sons" (2016), was cast to play the role of a DJ, described as "not exactly a cameo as it becomes a backbone for a certain conflict of a character" in the film.


title: Ae Dil Hai Mushkil

text: Lisa Haydon also confirmed that she will appear in the film. At the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2016, Johar confirmed that Shah Rukh Khan had also filmed a scene for the film.


title: Ae Dil Hai Mushkil

text: On 6 February at the India Conference at Harvard, Johar revealed that in the film, Kapoor plays the character of a Hindu boy named Ayan, and Sharma plays a Muslim girl named Alizeh.


title: Ae Dil Hai Mushkil

text: Principal photography began in September 2015 with Sharma and Kapoor in London. At the end of September, the team filmed some portions in Paris. In October, they began shooting in various locations in Austria, including the city of Vienna. Rai Bachchan joined the crew in Vienna in mid-October after the release of her film "Jazbaa" (2015). In March 2016, Kapoor, Sharma, and Khan were seen filming in Mandawa, Rajasthan. In July 2016, Johar tweeted a photo of Kapoor and Sharma on set in Mumbai for the last schedule.


title: Ae Dil Hai Mushkil

text: On 8 October 2016, the Indian political party, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS), proclaimed that they would not allow the release of the film, following nationwide protests surrounding the terrorist attack in Jammu and Kashmir on 18 September 2016 and the decision by Cinema Owners Exhibitors Association of India preventing the release of films with Pakistani actors in four states – Maharashtra, Gujarat, Karnataka, and Goa. Citing the casting of Pakistani actor Fawad Khan in the film, the MNS warned theater owners around the country to not screen the film, threatening them with vandalism. Announcing that security will be tightened at theaters along with sufficient police protection, Maharashtra chief minister, Devendra Fadnavis, commented on the issue, saying, "Anyone found taking the law into their hands will be dealt with firmly." He also informed that 12 MNS members were sent to judicial custody after they barged into a Mumbai theater and held a protest on 19 October 2016.


title: Ae Dil Hai Mushkil

text: Commenting on the ruckus behind his film's release, Johar released a video stating that the circumstances in which the film was shot in 2015 were completely different. "Going forward, I would like to say that of course, I will not engage with talent from the neighbouring country, given the circumstance. But with that same energy, I beseech you to know one thing – that over 300 people in my Indian crew have put their blood, sweat, and tears into making my film, "Ae Dil Hai Mushkil". I don't think it's fair for them to face any kind of turbulence on account of other fellow Indians," he further added in a video statement. He was heavily criticized by the news and social media for buckling under pressure. However, people from the film fraternity like Mukesh Bhatt and Shyam Benegal supported Johar and his film, and requested the people to consider the film and its release without giving importance to the actors' nationalities.


title: Ae Dil Hai Mushkil

text: On 20 October 2016, Mukesh Bhatt said that his discussion with the Union home minister, Rajnath Singh, had been consequential, and affirmed that the film will be screened throughout the country without any violence. However, he promised that he would not make any more films with Pakistani actors.


title: Ae Dil Hai Mushkil

text: "Ae Dil Hai Mushkil" was made on a total budget of over 100 crore ($15 million), including marketing and distribution costs. Prior to its release, the film had already recouped 75 crore ($11.2 million) from music, satellite and digital rights, so it needed to recover only 25 crore ($3.7 million) from the domestic box office. Worldwide, the film earned ₹90.84 crore ($13.6 million) on its opening weekend, while ComScore reported an estimated $12.8 million from 14 markets. As of November, it has made $21.3 million worldwide.


title: Ae Dil Hai Mushkil

text: In India, its domestic market, the film had to compete with "Shivaay" which was released on the same day during the lucrative Diwali weekend. On its opening day, the film made 13.30 crore, the third biggest for both Sharma and Kapoor, and the sixth biggest for a Bollywood film of the year. Through its opening weekend, it scored a debut of 35.60 crore ($5.3 million) net in its three days on 3,200 screens, equating to a gross 49.84 crore ($7.65 million), the ninth-biggest debut of the year and the best ever debut for Johar, beating "My Name is Khan"s ₹315.0 million ($4.7 million). On Monday, it saw a hike in ticket sales, earning 17.75 crore ($2.65 million) due to the holiday season. In its first full week, the film earned ₹801.9 million ($12 million) in India alone and $20.2 million worldwide. The film continued to dominate the box office in its second weekend, earning $3.2 million from 2,000 screens (−1,200 screens). In just 10 days, the film earned 97.17 crore ($14.6 million) net and has become the sixth highest-grossing Bollywood film in India. Moreover, the film now ranks as the highest-earner for Rai Bachchan, beating "Dhoom 2"s 82.30 crore ($12.3 million) in 2006; the fourth biggest for Sharma as well as for Kapoor.


title: Ae Dil Hai Mushkil

text: In the United Kingdom, it recorded the biggest Bollywood opening of the year with ₹4.88 crore ($772,891), debuting at eighth place at the U.K. box office. However, this is inclusive of previews. Including previews, "Sultan" would be the clear winner with a $1.3 million debut in July. But excluding previews, "Ae Dil Hai Mushkil" is ahead of the former. In the United States and Canada, the film received a limited release across 302 theaters and grossed 14 crore ($2.13 million) in its opening weekend finishing in tenth place.


title: Ae Dil Hai Mushkil

text: By the end of its theatrical run, the film grossed 160.69 crore in India and 237.56 crore worldwide, thus becoming a blockbuster at the box office..


title: Ae Dil Hai Mushkil

text: "Ae Dil Hai Mushkil" received mixed-to-positive reviews from critics upon release, with praise for its direction, music, cinematography, and performances of the cast, with particular praise directed towards Sharma, Kapoor and Rai’s performances; while its story and screenplay received criticism.


title: Ae Dil Hai Mushkil

text: Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a 53% score based on 14 critic reviews, with an average rating of 5.4/10. On Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating, the film has a score of 40 out of 100, based on four critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".


title: Ae Dil Hai Mushkil

text: "Bollywood Hungama" gave 4/5 ratings and commented, "a contemporary and a progressive take on relationships from the master storyteller Karan Johar".


title: Ae Dil Hai Mushkil

text: Raja Sen and Sukanya Verma of "Rediff.com" respectively rated 4/5 and 3.5/5 and said, "Thank you, Karan Johar for this film feels like a sob. Johar has improved massively as a storyteller, this film is more polished and assured than anything he's done before." and, "As evident by his body of work, Karan Johar has a sweet spot for this attribute, in the splendidly romantic and richly satisfying "Ae Dil Hai Mushkil"."


title: Ae Dil Hai Mushkil

text: Nihit Bhave of "The Times of India" rated 3.5/5 and said, "a beautiful-looking film that isn't bereft of logic".


title: Ae Dil Hai Mushkil

text: Rajeev Masand of News 18 gave the film 3.5 out of 5 stars and said, "Despite the occasionally mawkish undertones and the blatant attempt at emotional manipulation in its final act, "Ae Dil Hai Mushkil" gives you a hero that makes you care. I suspect you’ll be a slobbering mess at the end of the film, a puddle of tears when the lights come back on. Johar knows how to do that. It's a skill that's stayed with him even if his grammar has changed."


title: Ae Dil Hai Mushkil

text: Subhash K. Jha of "Deccan Chronicle" rated 2.5/5 and said, ""Ae Dil Hai Mushkil" is one good looking film with actors who epitomize human beauty." Sweta Kaushal of "Hindustan Times" rated 2.5/5, saying ""Ae Dil Hai Mushkil" offers little in terms of story and fails to get the audience empathize or feel for the characters and events in the movie."


title: Ae Dil Hai Mushkil

text: Shubhra Gupta of "The Indian Express" rated 2/5 and said, "Johar is unable to go the extra mile, hope that Johar will come up with something newer and sharper the next time around." Mike McCahill of "The Guardian" rated 2/5 and said, "Despite controversy over the casting, Karan Johar's romance has a failure of nerve about Hindu-Muslim relations."


title: Ae Dil Hai Mushkil

text: "The Hindu" commented, ""Ae Dil Hai Mushkil" is the latest in the brand of cinema that isn't so much as plot driven as it is focused on characters, relationships, and interactions."


title: Ae Dil Hai Mushkil

text: Reuters commented, ""Ae Dil Hai Mushkil" has neither gravitas nor the charm to be worth remembering."


title: Kellogg's

text: The Kellogg Company, doing business as Kellogg's, is an American multinational food manufacturing company headquartered in Battle Creek, Michigan, United States. Kellogg's produces cereal and convenience foods, including crackers and toaster pastries, and markets their products by several well known brands including Corn Flakes, Rice Krispies, Frosted Flakes, Pringles, Eggo, and Cheez-It. Kellogg's mission statement is "Nourishing families so they can flourish and thrive."


title: Kellogg's

text: Kellogg's products are manufactured and marketed in over 180 countries. Kellogg's largest factory is at Trafford Park in Trafford, Greater Manchester, United Kingdom, which is also the location of its UK headquarters. Other corporate office locations outside of Battle Creek include Chicago, Dublin (European Headquarters), Shanghai, and Querétaro City. Kellogg's holds a Royal Warrant from King Charles III and formerly Queen Elizabeth II until her death in 2022.


title: Kellogg's

text: In 1876, John Harvey Kellogg became the superintendent of the Battle Creek Sanitarium (originally the Western Health Reform Institute founded by Ellen White) and his brother, W. K. Kellogg, worked as the bookkeeper. This is where corn flakes were created and led to the eventual formation of the Kellogg Company.


title: Kellogg's

text: For years, W. K. Kellogg assisted his brother in research aimed at improving the vegetarian diet of the Battle Creek Sanitarium's patients, especially in the search for wheat-based granola. The Kelloggs are best known for the invention of the famous breakfast cereal corn flakes. The development of the flaked cereal in 1894 has been variously described by those involved: Ella Eaton Kellogg, John Harvey Kellogg, his younger brother Will Keith Kellogg, and other family members. There is considerable disagreement over who was involved in the discovery, and the role that they played. It is generally agreed that upon being called out one night, John Kellogg left a batch of wheat-berry dough behind. Rather than throwing it out the next morning, he sent it through the rollers and was surprised to obtain delicate flakes, which could then be baked.


title: Kellogg's

text: W. K. Kellogg persuaded his brother to serve the food in flake form. Soon the flaked wheat was being packaged to meet hundreds of mail-order requests from guests after they left the Sanitarium. However, Dr. John Harvey forbade his brother Will from distributing cereal beyond his consumers. As a result, the brothers fell out, and W. K. launched the Battle Creek Toasted Corn Flake Company on February 19, 1906. On July 4, 1907, a fire destroyed the main factory building. W.K. Kellogg had the new plant in full operation six months after the fire.


title: Kellogg's

text: Convincing his brother to relinquish rights to the product, Will's company produced and marketed the hugely successful Kellogg's Toasted Corn Flakes and was renamed the Kellogg Toasted Corn Flake Company in 1909, taking on the current name of the Kellogg Company in 1922.


title: Kellogg's

text: By 1909, Will's company was producing 120,000 cases of Corn Flakes a day. John, who resented his brother’s success, filed suit against Will's company in 1906 for the right to use the family name. The resulting legal battle, which included a trial that lasted an entire month, ended in December 1920 when the Michigan Supreme Court ruled in Will’s favor.


title: Kellogg's

text: In 1931, the Kellogg Company announced that most of its factories would shift towards 30-hour work weeks, from the usual 40. W.K. Kellogg stated that he did this so that an additional shift of workers would be employed in an effort to support people through the depression era. This practice remained until World War II, and continued briefly after the war, although some departments and factories remained locked into 30-hour work weeks until 1980.