Farewell Bury- but why and how?

Farewell Bury - but why and how?

So how did it all come down to this? Bury's disappearance from the Football League, their demotion to non League football is another stark reminder of football's harsh realities, its brittle financial backbone, its air of vulnerability at times and that familiar tale of corruption, appalling mismanagement and in the case of owner Steve Dale, a man with no interest in football whatsoever. And therein the lies the problem. Not for the first time football finds itself at the heart of a shameful scandal.

The chances are that the loyal and hardcore fans of Bury who have been following their football team for the best part of several decades will now have to be content with a leisurely stroll through the local shopping centre, grieving openly, sobbing their hearts out and wondering if justice will ever be seen to be done. The likelihood is that they will also be flooding the phone lines of their local radio station, angry, disgusted and totally betrayed by not only Dale and his chums but by all the people who they believe have sold them down the river.

In fact you may be sure that every single Bury supporter who has stuck faithfully by their troubled team will take to the streets and roads this afternoon and voice their opinions in no uncertain terms.  A furious revolt will be heard the length and breadth of Gigg Lane, banners will be unfurled and proud football fans will question football's integrity. Of course football has been here before but the crime has been committed, rules bent and a humble little football club, one of the League's oldest, can only be left to cower in the corner sadly, their sense of rejection and isolation perfectly understandable.

This afternoon Bury, once twice winners of the FA Cup, will be surplus to requirements, no longer wanted by the Football League and told to sling their hook. Gigg Lane will become an industrial wasteland, the pavements echoing to the sound of aching souls and the lingering smell of defeat and despair in the air. They will trudge down cobbled lanes, looking down at the ground miserably and tearfully, mindful all the while that no longer will be they allowed to rattle through those precious turnstiles, no longer given the opportunity to wave their scarves on those sturdy terraces.

The fact is of course those self same terraces will now be empty, soulless, pitifully heartbroken and, more importantly, left to rot during cold winters of desolation and dereliction. a broken football club with a  couple of thousand supporters who will continue to support them through thick and thin but without any League status anymore. Gigg Lane will become a sombre monument to football's greed, its flagrant disregard of the very football supporters who keep the game alive. Football will now take stock of itself, examine its conscience, weigh up exactly where things might have gone so disastrously wrong and then presumably wash its hands of the whole filthy business. Oh woe the Football League!

Of course this is not the first team that one of the Football League's lower division's basement boys has gone bust, condemned to bankruptcy and never likely to re-surface as a viable League club at any point in the future. The examples are, quite distressingly, common and poor old Bury may never be able to take any consolation in the fact that this has happened before.

In the winter of 1962 Bury's neighbours Accrington Stanley discovered that the club were up to their neck in debt, the team simply fading away and the winding up receivers had to be called in. Players hadn't been paid for ages, the whole infrastructure of the club had become a long standing joke, a complete embarrassment and the club had to be wound up whether Stanley wanted it to or not. Accrington Stanley went out of the Football League, another busted flush, gone to the wall, penniless and now trapped in the non League.

But there is a happy ending to this story. Several years ago Accrington Stanley came back to life as a League club with a sharp injection of money from a compassionate backer of the club. Now Stanley are back in the Football League and if Bury can cling onto any straw of hope then they may have to look no further than Accrington Stanley.

Towards the end of the 1960s you remembered Workington and Barrow, two more Lancashire hotpots who simply couldn't pay their way anymore and were kicked out of the Football League. So they shut their gates, locked the front door and said farewell. Presumably, Workington and Barrow are still attracting the proverbial cat, dog and a couple of sympathetic passers by on their way to the Saturday market.

The blunt truth is football may have to stand up in  a court of law to account for its criminal negligence, its cruelty and its inexplicable indifference to football clubs with a heart. Bury may not be the first team to leave the Football League and nor will they be the last. Bolton Wanderers of course have survived by the skin of their teeth. But Bury are now yesterday's men, a team whose supporters will now cry into their beer tonight and hope that somebody will care and somebody will once again believe in them. It can't be too much to ask for little Bury.