Inside Bury’s move back to Gigg Lane as bickering finally put aside to give Shakers bright future
THANK goodness after four years of heartache common sense has won and Bury FC will be back at Gigg Lane in all its glory this August.
For the last few years the town has been bitterly divided.
Friends have become foes and mud has been slung in all directions.
Bury has been a town split down the middle politically between two main parties and diverged on football since the club’s controversial expulsion from the EFL in 2019.
As the country found out in the immediate aftermath of Brexit, when you have a hung parliament politicians spend more time squabbling in deadlock rather than getting things done.
In Bury, there were two groups of supporters who saw different ways to move things forward.
Previous owner Steve Dale was not going to leave quietly despite only paying £1 to purchase the club in the first place.
Had he done so, there was a pathway open for Bury FC to then be placed into the National League or National League North the following season, as per FA rules concerning expelled Premier League and EFL clubs — but he desperately clung on.
He tried to get the two-time FA Cup winners back into a league by signing the club over to his son Christian — but the FA were not having any of it.
Throughout this process a number of local businessmen and even consortia attempted to acquire the club.
HOW TO GET FREE BETS ON FOOTBALL
Meanwhile, I met with one group shortly after the expulsion who mobilised and went on to call themselves The Shakers Community Society.
With Bury FC facing winding-up orders and seemingly certain liquidation, this group nobly set up a phoenix club called Bury AFC — which was 100 per cent owned by a fans’ membership.
They tapped into the knowledge of other supporter-run clubs like AFC Wimbledon and FC United of Manchester and got the Bury name at least back in football.
The new club was placed into the North West Counties League Division One North — the 10th tier — and played their home games at Radcliffe FC’s Stainton Park three miles from Gigg Lane.
Since then they have been promoted to the Premier Division and this season enjoyed average crowds of 1,233.
But Bury FC pulled an average of 4,044 in their last competitive season in League Two in 2018-2019 so it was blindingly obvious there was a majority of diehard Shakers fans not buying into supporting the new team.
And many have told me that is simply because watching a phoenix club playing at a small non-league ground down the road would never be able to match the magic of going to Gigg Lane on a Saturday to roar on Bury FC.
One of the problems the phoenix club has had drawing everyone in was that the actual Bury FC was still in existence, even though it was dormant and in administration.
So another group of supporters focussed on trying to achieve two massive things for Shakers fans… acquire Bury FC and get the keys to Gigg Lane.
The Bury Football Club Supporters Society — a group made up of 51 per cent fan membership and 49 per cent business supporters — managed to pull that off.
After striking a deal with the administrators, they managed to buy Bury FC, the naming rights, history and memorabilia out of the holding company’s shell. It was similar to what happened at Bolton four years ago.
And since then, the club have managed to secure or be pledged around £2.4million in investment and grants. They have already received £700,000 from the £1m they were awarded by the government — with the BFCSS putting in £1m themselves.
But where the phoenix team had an issue getting a full united fan base to support them, the other group did not have a senior team to play matches after the FA rejected their application to restart a team and be placed in a league.
FA bigwigs did not want to see two rival clubs from the small town and preferred the two groups to unite.
Bury Council said they would award £450,000 to help towards making Gigg Lane a community asset — but only if the two groups merged to run one club.
A vote had taken place between both organisations last October but the BFCSS just failed to reach the 63 per cent threshold to carry the merger proposal.
But finally on Friday night common-sense and pragmatism won as the groups voted overwhelmingly to bury their hatchets and unite.
The revived club will take over Bury AFC’s place in the ninth tier and compete as Bury FC.
The groups will vote on appointing a new board shortly and follow the German model of running a 51 per cent fan-owned club.
It is going to be an emotional first game back at Gigg Lane in August.
The squabbling and bickering is over and Bury FC are back in business.
With a united fan base they can restore their rightful place in the EFL that was so cruelly stolen from them four years ago.