A day that began with optimism ended in despair, disbelief and fury in Bury as one of England’s oldest football clubs was kicked out of the league after 125 years.
The future of Bury FC, founded in 1885, was plunged into grave doubt after the club were expelled from the English Football League (EFL) at 11pm on Tuesday, hours after the collapse of an 11th-hour rescue deal.
Thirteen miles away, the fate of Bolton Wanderers also looked increasingly perilous as the club was given 14 days to save its membership in a league it helped found in 1888. The process of closing down the club could begin as early as Wednesday.
There was widespread shock and demands for reform of football governance when Bury’s dramatic expulsion was announced by the EFL, which described it as “undoubtedly one of the darkest days in the league’s recent history”.
Bury’s demise is a grim warning that small-town Britain is still being left behind.
It is understood that the EFL rejected late pleas for Bury to be given a 24-hour extension to its deadline, up to 5pm on Wednesday, to thrash out a deal between the owner Steve Dale and two new potential bidders after a sale to the data company C&N Sporting Risk fell through shortly before Tuesday's deadline.
Ivan Lewis, the independent MP for Bury South, said the expulsion was a “devastating blow to us all” and that securing the club’s future was “now a massively uphill struggle and to give people false hope would be unfair”.
“On the other hand, we can’t afford to leave any stone unturned and the fight goes on,”he said.
Lewis said Dale had agreed in principle to sell the club to a potential owner before 5pm but that the EFL refused to allow more time for a deal to be done: “That’s one of the issues we want to discuss with the league as a matter of great urgency . . . But all options remain open to us – the fans, the council, the MPs – and we’re not going to lie down and die.”
Hundreds of volunteers gathered at Bury’s Gigg Lane stadium earlier in the day, scrubbing toilets and cleaning the stands in the hope the club would survive and play its delayed first game of the season on Saturday.
Those hopes were dashed when the English Football League announced shortly before 5pm that the late takeover deal had collapsed, as crowds of anxious fans, some in tears, gathered outside the ground.
Stephen Farrar, 26, one of hundreds who spent hours cleaning stands in anticipation of Bury’s first game of the season going ahead on Saturday, said: “My legs are shaking – I just feel like I’m going to cry to be honest. I know people are saying ‘still believe’ but I don’t know how it can [survive]. I’m devastated.”
The fate of Bury and Bolton, two of the oldest clubs in English football, has fuelled calls for a complete overhaul of the rules and regulations around the governance of the sport in Britain.
Outside Gigg Lane, Clive Roberts, 73, said he had travelled 7,000 miles from his home in Canada hoping to watch his beloved club’s first few games of the season “only to find I was attending a wake”.
Roberts said his great grandfather watched , while his own father played for the RAF team at Gigg Lane during the second World War. “I hoped my own grandchildren would be coming here in years to come – that’s not going to be the case,” he said.
“The family will lose that link to Bury and lose what the history of the area means. It’s a very emotional day – I’m trying to hold it in. I maybe hasn’t hit home yet, but it will.”
Greg Edyvean, 38, has had a season ticket at Gigg Lane since he was six-weeks-old. He continued the tradition with his own two children, now aged 12 and two.
As the news of the deal’s collapse filtered through, Edyvean was allowed to sit alone in his regular seat inside the stadium. “I’ve been sat there for the best part of two hours in tears,” he said. “It’s my favourite place on earth and it could be the last time it happens. It’s horrific. There’s not words to describe it.”
Some volunteers drove 300 miles to take part in the clean-up operation, with plumbers, bricklayers, electricians all chipping in alongside fans of rival clubs including Leeds United, Accrington Stanley and Blackpool.
Dave Gifford, the chair of the Bury supporters’ trust Forever Bury, said: “We’ve cleaned every seat, so we want to see someone sat in every seat on Saturday. It’s been the most difficult four months for us as fans. It’s been the most difficult six years for us.”
Carrying her gloves, bucket and sponge, 72-year-old Joan Lingard was cleaning the stadium’s seats by 9am on Tuesday. It would be “absolutely awful” for Bury if its club disappeared, she said. “Everybody’s come down, whether they come to the matches or not. I’d hate to see it go. Next to Bury black puddings, this is the next thing, Gigg Lane. The two are synonymous.”
Ian Frazer, 48, a Leeds fan, joined the clean-up, motivated by the financial crisis experienced by his own club 12 years ago. Wearing a Leeds shirt while scrubbing pigeon droppings off Bury’s Manchester Road stand, Frazer said: “It’s simple stuff like this that’s fantastic to see – all the kids here. I kind of welled up when I got here.
“It’s very, very moving in many ways. To see this reaction from Bury supporters, from people who live in the town who maybe aren’t football fans. This is a tremendous outpouring of community spirit. I’ll be honest, out of adversity over the last few weeks and months this town has really shown its strength.” – Guardian
