Bury FC - Alive and Kicking - And Thriving!

Back in late August 2023, I ventured to the home of Padiham FC to watch an early season match against Bury FC in The North West Counties League Premier Division (tier 9 of the English football pyramid). The newly merged entity of Bury FC was reunited with its spiritual home of Gigg Lane and the fans had their club - and their ground - back after four years of turmoil. I wrote about it here Bury Alive - And Kicking.

My mate Darren, about to fall in love.

Three years down the line and despite narrowly missing out on promotion at the end of that 2023/24 season, consecutive promotions since have seen Bury rise to the Northern Premier League, Premier Division. After my mate Darren's fall-in-love-affair with the club back in June (see Flaming June), I thought it was about time I got myself down to Gigg Lane for a first visit in twenty five years* and an FA Cup third qualifying round tie at home to Bromsgrove Sporting provided the perfect opportunity to do so.

And so it was that I headed out on Saturday morning with a life size replica FA Cup made of silver foil and cardboard, a wooden rattle and a kingsize, blue and white "Up for the Cup" rosette. Okay, that's not true but I'm old enough to remember when the FA Cup was the glory trophy of English football and an FA Cup day, third qualifying round or not, was invariably superior to a league game in terms of excitement, atmosphere and the prospect/ possibility/ pipedream of a trip to the twin towers at Wembley in May.

It would be remiss of me not to mention that Bury have actually won the FA Cup on two occasions, admittedly many moons ago but that just goes to show that this is a club with a real football heritage.

Darren in fifteen years time.

As an old geezer of a certain age, I am now the proud owner of a Bus Pass which currently saves me a maximum of £3.00 per trip. Thanks to Andy Burnham this will soon only save me a maximum of £2.00 per trip which is most unfair, particularly as taking the bus means that I don't have to stop at one and half pints so I'm going to be hit with a double whammy of saving less and spending more. Bloody politicians. Anyway I bussed it into Bury town centre where, upon alighting the bus at Bury Interchange bus station, I was piped off the bus by a one-legged bloke playing the spoons. As he was playing the spoons and not actually playing a pipe, I maybe should have said that I was "spooned" off the bus but this might easily have been misinterpreted so we'll stick with "piped". Anyway, with plenty of time to spare I rehydrated with a pint of J.W.Lees Dragon's Fire amber ale at The Robert Peel and then moved on to The Marketside Tavern where I quaffed a rather splendid pint of Phoenix Brewery's Arizona pale. 

Mrs C tells me that Bury is famous for its market and the market renowned historically for its black pudding. Now, I may be a southerner but I am quite partial to black pudding but I don't like markets. Shopping - generally - is a necessary evil. It has to be done but there's nothing enjoyable about it. How anyone can "enjoy" shopping and/or combine shopping with a "nice coffee" or a meal, or even a pint, is beyond me. Shopping is shopping. Get in. Get out. Job done. As its name implies, the Marketside Tavern is adjacent to the market and its location is genius in that one is tempted in by the excellent choice of beers on offer before one might otherwise, accidentally, set foot in the market. Phew. Narrow escape.

Suitably refreshed, I walked the near one mile from the town centre to the ground where, upon arrival, I was patted down and security wanded before paying my £10 entry to the main stand which houses Starkies Bar. Unusual name? Yep. Named after the old "Starkies" area of Bury which itself was named after the original land owners, the Starkie family of Padiham who also once owned the land on which Padiham FC now play their home games. Unbelievable Jeff.

You're never going to get a cask ale in a facility such as Starkies but the keg Hobgoblin IPA was decent enough consolation at £4.40 a pint. The bar looks out over the ground from the west end of the main stand. With an average home crowd of around three and a half thousand in an eleven thousand seater stadium, the stands behind the two goals are typically closed on match days although the east stand was open today for the hundred or so Bromsgrove supporters who made the trip. 

The guy on the door at Starkies had a question for me once my Sheffield Wednesday allegiance was mentioned. "What do you think about the state of the pitch at Hillsborough?" A fair enough question but a bit random? Not so. Turns out his brother is the head groundsman at Hillsborough! Fortunately, before he imparted this information, I was able to confirm that the new man has indeed performed something of a miracle in improving the pitch at Hillsborough. A partial rebuild of the pitch was necessary, involving a lot of digging, although he denies any knowledge of the whereabouts of ex-owner Dejphon Chansiri who hasn't been heard of for some months now. 

Both Jackson boys are fans of Manchester City, a club that is currently in the news for all the wrong reasons. Understandably, City fans generally are trying to rationalise the situation and I have some sympathy in the same way that I had sympathy for Bury fans when the club was expelled from the league in that none of it was their fault. Financially, football has never been a  level playing field and maybe the current financial fair play rules, of which City have fallen foul, are inherently misguided. But rules are rules and City's owners have deliberately ridden roughshod over the rules with the belief that they can deny and hide behind the power their riches afford. Now they've been caught out and face sanctions, they're threatening to take their ball home with them.

Al Capone used to engage in high profile charitable activity. It didn't make him a good guy.

Lifelong fan Tony Wright with Darren in 15 years time

I got talking to lifelong Bury fan Tony Wright. It's his dad's fault that Tony supports Bury and that, as far as I am concerned, is exactly how it should be. In fact, that really is what football shoud be about. The heritage. The pride. The belonging. 

Bury has a long and proud footballing heritage and Tony showed me the Bury FC Legends Wall, a permanent tribute consisting sixty large format panels, celebrating the history and players of the club. Famous names, some of whom I either didn't know of or had forgotten their Bury connections, including Colin Bell, Dean Kiely, Alec Lindsay, Craig Madden and Bob Stokoe. Bury FC is a real, good old fashioned football club. 

Bury FC Legends Wall

A second pint of the Hobgoblin IPA accompanied me to my seat in the main stand. Kick-off was preceded by a minute's applause to honour ex-Bury player Courteny Meppen-Walter who died a few days ago at the tragically early age of thirty two. 

Opponents Bromsgrove Sporting, managed by ex-Southampton, Blackburn Rovers and England goalkeeper Tim Flowers, play at an equivalent (tier 7) level in The Southern League Central Premier Division and came into the game unbeaten in their last nine games. By all accounts then, a tough one to call with two in-form teams of evenly matched status. 

A defensive error on 8 minutes led to Bury's opening goal. Another defensive error in the 59th minute led to Bury's second goal. In between times, Bury were the better of two well drilled teams although created little whilst Bromsgrove missed two good chances. Back to even steven and no real chances either way until a corner in the 91st minute resulted in a headed goal for the visitors, prompting enthusiastic celebrations from their small following including one lad who ran on to the pitch, giving it large to all and sundry. Potential squeaky bum time for Bury with the referee having added on a total of five minutes extra time but in between Bromsgrove pressing, the Bury forward Anthony Dudley missed a sitter when clean through against the goalkeeper. Mind you, the goalkeeper was a reyt big lad. Anyway, that was it. Final whistle and Bury were through. Wem-ber-ley, Wem-ber-ley!

Out of a crowd of 3,342 (more than when I came here twenty five years ago), I reckon all 3,342 had enjoyed their football fix and around 3,300 of whom can now look forward to further cup excitement in the next (final qualifying) round before the EFL teams enter the fray in Round 1 proper. The atmosphere throughout was excellent, generated particularly by the constant noise and backing of the Bury fans in the (opposite) south stand. 

When you have Bury FC to support, or Bromsgrove Sporting, or indeed any other football club, does it really matter that some clubs have more money and power than others? T'was ever thus and the imposing of anti-competitive guidelines to artificially level the financial playing field is akin to scrapping sports day at school to ensure that nobody loses. What football does need is a fairer distribution of money down through the football pyramid and the best way to achieve this is to link the contribution of the Premier League clubs to their turnover. The elite clubs wouldn't like this any more than Manchester City like the financial fair play rules but linking both their spending power and their solidarity contributions to turnover would at least ensure that the big boys can't have it both ways.

Bury FC is currently a big fish in a small pond and the fans will have realistic hopes of further progression up through the football pyramid for some time yet to come. The wonderful thing about football is that notwithstanding individual club wealth, ultimately it's all about what happens on the pitch. And whilst money massively influences what happens on the pitch, it is not a guarantee of success. Which is why fans of Bury FC, and Bromsgrove Sporting, and indeed all other football clubs are still allowed their pipedreams and wouldn't swap them for all the money in Abu Dhabi.

No wonder my mate Darren fell in love with this place.

* 21 August 2001 League Cup 1st Round: Bury 1-3 Sheffield Wednesday (att. 3,129)