Almost dead and Bury'd

With it seemingly just a matter of time before Bury Football Club’s membership in the Football League comes to end, now seems a poignant time to reflect on my own memories of games involving the Shakers.

Down the years, well this side of the millennium anyway, I’ve seen close to 900 professional games in England alone and, ironically, 13 have involved 'unlucky' Bury.

Whilst not a lot on face value, the Shakers have always been a staple of the lower leagues - surviving in an area swamped with gigantic Premier League and Championship clubs that have long since lost touch with reality.

I’ve seen Bury scrap for survival under Chris Casper, suffer play-off heartbreak under Alan Knill in a season when they deserved much more, rebuild and rejuvenate under David Flitcroft, then flourish against a backdrop of off-field turmoil under Ryan Lowe last season.

My first memory of any kind involving Bury was as a starry-eyed nine-year-old.

It was the late 1990s and, sponsored by 'Birthdays' - the former retailer, they were plying their trade in Division One (now the Championship) and got handed a plum tie at near neighbours Manchester United in one of the early rounds of the League Cup.

United won, unsurprisingly, because even back then the two were worlds apart in footballing terms - this despite both clubs' grounds being separated by a few miles and a dozen or so stops on the Bury to Altrincham tram line.

The gulf hasn't changed between then and now with the Red Devils making Harry Maguire the worlds most expensive defender for an eye-watering £80 million pounds in the same week that the Shakers' were given notice on their EFL membership.

It's not United's responsibility to sort out Bury's problems, but that figure is a sign of how 'bonkers' it's gone at the top of the game when a tiny percentage of that figure would make a huge difference to a down to earth, local club!

Anyway, I had to wait until April 2004 to see Bury 'live' in action.

By then, they'd plummeted to the bottom rung of the Football League and were cannon-fodder; comfortably dispatched by a Doncaster Rovers side that were well on their way to the Division Three title.

Harpal Singh did beat Andy Warrington (who later had a loan spell with Bury) with a free-kick in the closing stages. To this day, it's one of most muted celebrations that I've ever witnessed to a goal as many Shakers fans had already left given their side were 3-0 behind.

Two-and-a-half year later, during a period in which the club was sharing the stadium with FC United of Manchester and in the midst of a bleak mid-winter, came my first visit to Gigg Lane.

The Shakers played Stockport County and won, 2-0, with Andy Bishop scoring inside the first couple of minutes. It was a wet, horrible, misty day, dark by four o'clock and played on a bog of a pitch that was regularly slated by opponents at the time.

It was also Bury's last three points for a while as they soon went on 'one of those' runs which saw them plummet towards the drop zone and have fans worrying about relegation to the Conference Premier.

It didn't happen though!

Boston and Torquay eventually slipped through the trapdoor, and Chris Casper kept his job and was still in charge by my next Bury game just over a year later; a 2-0 defeat at a rain-soaked Christie Park against Morecambe in the Area Quarter-Finals of the Johnstone's Paint Trophy.

The weather was so bad that night that spectators were moved off the aptly-named 'Car Wash Terrace' prior to a delayed kick-off as a torrential downpour threatened a late postponement.

Casper may well have wished the game had been postponed as he was soon relieved of his duties with Alan Knill becoming his replacement.

Two months later, in March 2008, Bury were the opponents for my first trip to Shrewsbury's newly-built stadium - coming away victorious thanks to a brilliant curling-strike by Nicky Adams, right infront of the away fans, late in the game.

After missing out on automatic promotion from League Two in 2008/09, the Shakers and the Shrews then played out a memorable televised play-off semi-final as Knill's Bury relinquished a first leg lead to miss out on a trip to Wembley.

The outstanding second leg performance by Shrewsbury's Luke Daniels, on loan at the time from West Bromwich Albion, certainly lives in the memory!

Promotion to League One did eventually materialise though, which enabled me to be amongst Gigg Lane's lowest league crowd of the 2011/12 season as just 2,072 people witnessed a 2-1 midweek reverse against Hartlepool United.

In the meantime, I'd also seen a not-at-all memorable JPT clash against Tranmere Rovers, which the visitors won 1-0, on my second visit in November 2010.

Relegation back to League Two occurred in 2012/13 with my only game being an early-season 2-1 defeat at Doncaster Rovers on the Shakers' first ever visit to the Keepmoat Stadium.

With boardroom and playing personnel changes aplenty over the next 12 months, the 2013/14 campaign was meant to represent a new beginning.

It wasn't quite the case as Kevin Blackwell came in, spent money, signed loads of players and p*ssed everyone off pretty damn quickly, before being given his marching orders - leaving Ronnie Jepson to take over in the interim before David Flitcroft got the job permanently.

By now I was working full-time at Mansfield Town and we did well to secure a point with ten men in a goalless draw at Gigg Lane in October 2013 with referee Andy Haines trying his hardest to be the centre of attention.

In the twice re-arranged reverse fixture in Nottinghamshire, four months later, we got well and truly walloped by a miles better side. The Shakers won 4-1, completely embarrassed us and a smug Flitcroft was 'giving it the big one' after the game as he didn't like our manager, Paul Cox, very much.

Cox had gone before we lost twice more to Flitcroft's men in 2014/15.

The Shakers were clearly onto something good and after the loss in Greater Manchester in December, Adam Murray, our new manager, tried to adopt Bury's tactic of using the youth team as ball boys and getting them to waste precious seconds here and there when necessary.

In the return game at Field Mill in March, we conceded an early goal which wasn't actually a Ryan Tafazolli own goal as given by Opta Sports, and lost 1-0.

Quite simply, Bury were just a cut above us with some of the football they played on both occasions and even though Danny Rose was ridiculously left on the bench, they were destined for promotion back to League One.

Three years passed by until my next Bury game and this time they fought valiantly to grab a point in a thrilling 3-3 draw at Doncaster. However, it was too late for their League One survival prospects as they were already condemned to the drop.

Finally, I managed to sandwich one game involving the Shakers into last season's schedule and it came as they beat Northampton Town, 3-1, on home soil on Easter Monday.

Even though off-field problems were apparent and had been documented throughout the season, the sheer gravity and scale of the issues wasn't clear. That game is also the only time I've seen a manager have a new car delivered to a stadium on a matchday but then again Keith Curle has always been a bit of a mysterious and curious bloke.

Anyway, after Nicky Adams and Danny Mayor dictated play, Bury bagged their third goal deep into injury-time and as I strolled back up towards Bury interchange, there was an almost tangible sense of delight as Shakers fans basked in the Bank Holiday sunshine and feeling very happy that their local team were just a win away from promotion.

Yet now, just a few weeks later, the club is staring oblivion in the face with it looking almost inevitable that they'll lose their EFL membership.

Over the years, players have come and again. Efe Sodje, David Nugent, Brian Jensen, Chris Brass, Glyn Hurst, Chris Sedgwick, Richie Barker and Joe Skarz are a few others, not yet mentioned, who've represented Bury in my era of watching football and been memorable.

Managers too, have also come and gone and there's been plenty of others in the hot-seat over the past 15 years who have long been forgotten, yet have still wrote their own chapter in the Bury's history - for good or bad reasons!

Nevertheless, throughout this time - before, during and after FC United's ground-sharing days, too; Gigg Lane and everything about it has remained the same from the paper (and not card) style ticket stubs to Gordon Sorfleet's dry sense of humour in the press box.

Kids growing up and becoming young adults in or around this town, deserve to have a local side to watch at a respectable level and deserve better than what is happening at Gigg Lane, in regards to the ownership, right now.

AFC Bury, or whatever else, might be born in the near-future but they’ll have to build their way back up from scratch - through the North-West Counties League, into the Unibond Divisions, then slowly on to bigger and better things.

Whoever you support, you'll likely agree that things should never have got this far!