Bury

[mikey]

16 minutes ago, CAVALIER said:

I've a couple of mates who support Bury. When I asked what they were doing about Dale etc it was a matter of 'we think we may do something some time'. No demo's, threats , knock on the directors box door etc. Sort of slow motion.

I've also been puzzled by the lack of any action or campaign given the severity of the situation. Its almost like they accepted it a while ago. 

[JRC]

5 minutes ago, CAVALIER said:

I've a couple of mates who support Bury. When I asked what they were doing about Dale etc it was a matter of 'we think we may do something some time'. No demo's, threats , knock on the directors box door etc. Sort of slow motion.

It's not a straight forward situation at Bury. Stewart Day ran up all the debt. The scary thing was even after a 75% debt reduction under the CVA they still didn't have enough revenue to service the debt so God knows how much they actually owed in total. Why Dale agreed to take Bury on is a mystery. Just a trawl through the internet over the last 4 years would have highlighted the rising debt level. Ultimately at the end there was interest but the outside backers looked at the figures and walked away. For me the bigger villain is Day who has escaped a lot of the scorn heaped on Dale; although Dale comes out of this as either culpable in the financial situation or extremely foolish in ever getting involved.

[Valiant in Brum]

Sad state of affairs.

[Houston Valiant]

We’re very fortunate to have a home game against Cambridge United to look forward to. I cannot imagine what a Saturday would be like with my club gone . 

It only highlights once again, and it cannot be said enough , the great work done by Vale fans and the bravery of the Shanahans to pay the inflated price to take over the club and save the ground as well.  A massive achievement considering  the circumstances of yesterday’s  announcement of Bury’s expulsion. 

[bycars rob]

The ffp rules will be tightened so that owners can`t put money in and exchange loans for shares as many have done to get around the regulations. This will have a big effect at a certain club not too far from us, who may shortly have to be living within their now meagre means.

[valefan16]

It’s a tough situation and Askey has summed it up very well. To put into closer to home they stayed up ahead of us by one point in 2016/17... had they been within budget and not spending thousands a week on Pope and Vaughan they’d have likely gone in our place that year...

The club has to take responsibility for that mess but sadly the fans are always the ones who suffer and it’s those you have to feel for.

[red_rose_valiant]

Interesting as well is the situation it now puts leagues one and two in for the rest of the season. 3 down from L1, 4 up from L2. Therefore only 1 down from L2 this season....

[RailwayRowdy]

I have followed Bury’s  and Bolton’s predicament fairly closely over the last few months. 

Whilst I hear what contributors to these pages have said about Bury fans inactivity against the current owner, it must be remembered that Dale has actually only owned the club less than 12 months.

Were we as Vale fans reacting against Smurfthwaite after a similar time period ? It seems to me that this situation, although possibly brewing for a number of years, has only really escalated under Dale’s short stewardship.

This is in no way meant as a defence of Dale himself, but perhaps Shakers fans didn’t realise the extreme problems that their club had. After all they had just achieved promotion so all must be ok mustn’t it ?

In no way do I absolve the recent owners of Bury FC for their club’s current situation, but I feel that criticising supporters for their perceived lack of action against the owner is harsh. 

We had a numbers of years of Sexman to see the writing on the wall. Bury fans have had less than a year( including a summer)  to suss Dale out. 

  

 

 

[JRC]

9 minutes ago, Nofinikea said:

I dont understand why people feel sorry for the fans...  look at there gates?  More people from Bury follow United and City rather than there home town club.  All this talk of community, if the community supported the club it wouldn't have gone.  Phil Neville seems to have alot to say as well, his dad was a director and his mum club secretary for 31 years and it's a travesty it's gone...  maybe Phil, maybe you and Gary, the lads done good from such a strong community as Bury, maybe you pair should have invested in your home town club instead of Salford?  Another club spending more than it can ever generate in revenue - Hypocrite. 

No, this isn't a travesty, it isn't a sad day it's a warning to every club not enjoying the top flight gravy train to live within your means.  This was inevitable, everyone outside of Bury said what was going to happen 3 years ago.  There fans did nothing, zip, nada, just lapped up the signings, gloated about out gunning clubs bigger than them and pretended everything was ok whilst the rest of us could see it miles off.

No sympathy whatsoever.

In the same way you can have sympathy for victims of ponzi and get rich quick schemes I think you can have sympathy for Bury fans; while finding their support for Day pretty incredulous. Day was a good salesman who promised a dream. He also built a business empire which collapsed under similar circumstances, due to similar financing arrangements. Just look at any football forum (including this one) it's full of people urging chairmen and women to sign this player or that because the extra revenue the player generates will cover to costs. Rarely does it come true. It's not true that all Vale fans could see this coming ... go back to the Pope departure thread and the majority were stating that it showed Bury's ambition and a route we should follow. A few posters did mention  their financing and were shot down. A minority of Bury fans did question Day's financing; the majority preferred to shoot them down and follow the dream they were sold.

[pensioner]

As far back as 2016 most supporters of other teams were openly saying Bury was in a rotten state and that time would come when they would reap the benefit of what they had sown as a club. All was rosey when they had a sugar daddy and the club was was just his little toy, a bit like others but he got older and health issues made him put away the toys into the recycle bin and he passed it on to hood pullers. He didnt care, the new toy holder didnt care and more importantly the EFL didn't care. As Nofinikea has intimated the Neville Brothers didnt care despite family members being so ingrained in the club. I also wonder why they decided to put money into a plastic club like Salford when a real Club was crying out for support from so called community minded locals. Now its happened the world will see so many Good People asking how has this come to pass to such a great community club. Simples - Very Little support from the community on match days and no one trying to keep it afloat from the local business community and millionaires. It would be a good time for the Nevilles to just hide in Salford and shut up as they are looking to be toss potts.

 

[JRC]

4 minutes ago, RailwayRowdy said:

I have followed Bury’s  and Bolton’s predicament fairly closely over the last few months. 

Whilst I hear what contributors to these pages have said about Bury fans inactivity against the current owner, it must be remembered that Dale has actually only owned the club less than 12 months.

Were we as Vale fans reacting against Smurfthwaite after a similar time period ? It seems to me that this situation, although possibly brewing for a number of years, has only really escalated under Dale’s short stewardship.

This is in no way meant as a defence of Dale himself, but perhaps Shakers fans didn’t realise the extreme problems that their club had. After all they had just achieved promotion so all must be ok mustn’t it ?

In no way do I absolve the recent owners of Bury FC for their club’s current situation, but I feel that criticising supporters for their perceived lack of action against the owner is harsh. 

We had a numbers of years of Sexman to see the writing on the wall. Bury fans have had less than a year( including a summer)  to suss Dale out. 

  

 

 

The other point is although Dale comes across as a cretin the mountain of debt was not his doing. There were protests towards the end. In 2016 Bury were already at least 8 million in debt. By the time he took over it was probably more than double and I suspect that is a conservative estimate. Its hard to protest against a chairman for 16 million in debt someone else wracked up.

[JRC]

4 minutes ago, pensioner said:

As far back as 2016 most supporters of other teams were openly saying Bury was in a rotten state and that time would come when they would reap the benefit of what they had sown as a club. All was rosey when they had a sugar daddy and the club was was just his little toy, a bit like others but he got older and health issues made him put away the toys into the recycle bin and he passed it on to hood pullers. He didnt care, the new toy holder didnt care and more importantly the EFL didn't care. As Nofinikea has intimated the Neville Brothers didnt care despite family members being so ingrained in the club. I also wonder why they decided to put money into a plastic club like Salford when a real Club was crying out for support from so called community minded locals. Now its happened the world will see so many Good People asking how has this come to pass to such a great community club. Simples - Very Little support from the community on match days and no one trying to keep it afloat from the local business community and millionaires. It would be a good time for the Nevilles to just hide in Salford and shut up as they are looking to be toss potts.

 

If you read the history of Day he didn't have a pot to xxx in. The money he used was from constantly mortgaging and remortgaging the ground on increasingly expensive loans (The same way he financed his businesses). As the debt went up successive loans had higher and higher interest rates (12% in 2016). When it all got too much he found someone daft enough to get involved in the last rites for a few months. The one thing I do believe Dale told the truth about was that new debts he was unaware of just kept appearing.

[JRC]

1 minute ago, Nofinikea said:

They lapped it up when paying Pope and co silly money.  Nothing is for free and this is the price of sitting by and ignoring the obvious.

But for a relatively small number of Vale fans mobilising the masses this would have been Port Vale.  Fortunately our band of "trouble makers" had the fortitude and courage of conviction to persist beyond the blinded and hoodwinked.  Where was Bury's black and gold?  Supporters Club?  Local Media?  Famous Associates? Local Business people?  

Sorry but they got the club they deserved and but for a handful of Valiants alot of our support nearly got the club they deserved last May.

Next time and Tim Barber, Alan Baker etc stand up and tell you there is something wrong, instead of shouting them down, listen and help.  They have been bang on twice now.

Black and Gold wouldn't have worked at Bury. Last set of accounts the only real creditor was Smurthwaite. Bury owed millions to businesses and individuals not connected to the club. Bury debts belonged to Bury, not Day and still belonged to Bury when Dale bought the club. Getting Dale to leave would still have left a business owing loads on money with creditors who had just agreed to write off 75% of their money which the club still couldn't pay. The end game showed that no sensible person would touch it. Day probably very grateful he found someone like Dale to at least give him a pound for his bus fare home.

[Jacko51]

32 minutes ago, RailwayRowdy said:

I have followed Bury’s  and Bolton’s predicament fairly closely over the last few months. 

Whilst I hear what contributors to these pages have said about Bury fans inactivity against the current owner, it must be remembered that Dale has actually only owned the club less than 12 months.

 

This situation at Bury has been developing for much longer than Dale's tenure and if the fans had bothered to look at the club's accounts at Companies House they would have know ages ago that the club was going down the pan financially.  Losing £2 million quid plus a year on the gates they were getting should have had them asking serious questions.  They don't appear to have done so.

[Jacko51]

9 minutes ago, JRC said:

Black and Gold wouldn't have worked at Bury. Last set of accounts the only real creditor was Smurthwaite. Bury owed millions to businesses and individuals not connected to the club. Bury debts belonged to Bury, not Day and still belonged to Bury when Dale bought the club. Getting Dale to leave would still have left a business owing loads on money with creditors who had just agreed to write off 75% of their money which the club still couldn't pay. The end game showed that no sensible person would touch it. Day probably very grateful he found someone like Dale to at least give him a pound for his bus fare home.

I wonder if any of the Bury fans bothered to contact the EFL about their concerns?