21 July 2008, 14:56
My name is Gareth and I support Bury FC. It may seem dramatic to put this in the style of an addict, but in many ways there is no more fitting a style for such a statement.
I am now into my 15th year of this affliction and an end does not seem in sight. To many it may seem masochistic. The heartbreak, dejection and sorrow may seem worthless. But somewhere in my heart the thought of an away win at Accrington spurs me on, somehow the 93rd minite winning tap-in from two seasons ago gives me hope and somewhere in my brain reality is suspended while the hopeless becomes the possible. I know at times it will be bad, I know sometimes it will be worse and I know that occasionally it will simply be depressing. But it will always be mine.
It hasn’t always been bad though. Bury, to most people outside of Manchester anyway, is a bit like Fiji. You know you’ve heard of it, you know its had some sort of history and if you were given an outline map, you’d be able to point in its general direction. It is not, though, somewhere you are likely to visit. To those a little more ‘in the know’, Bury essentially has four pieces of trivia attached to it. The first of these is that it has a market which proclaims itself to be ‘World Famous’. What actually constitutes ’World Famous’ is unclear. Although the fact that it has an ‘indoor’ and an ‘outdoor’ section must help.
The second titbit is that Bury is the home and birthplace of the blackpudding. The blackpudding can best be described as a cousin of the well known, humble sausage. Like many of the best things in life, it is simply a combination of ’left overs’. This may sound harmless enough, but blackpudding is up there with marmite asone of the most opinion splitting foods known to man. This all comes down to its most famous ingredient, pig’s blood. The blood, when boiled, gives the pudding the rich black colour after which it is named. Although this key ingredient may make some queasy, those of us who can’t get enough of the stuff take a kind of bizarre pleasure from having the ‘guts’ to put away plate after plate of the delicacy.
Like any regional food, ther is a long running debate as to what is the ‘proper’ way of serving blackpudding. Personally I like mine boiled, cut and covered in English Mustard (although tomato sauce is acceptable). It now seems more common to cut the blackpudding, before cooking, into thick circles which are then fried. This can usually be found on commercially made ‘Full English’ breakfasts. Although one does not pretend to be a food critic, this does, to a Bury lad born and bred, seem to be the food equivalent of buying yourself a solid gold toilet and then urinating in your sink.
The third point of note is that Bury was the birthplace of Sir Robert Peel, the founder of the modern day Police force. This proud moment in the town’s history is commemorated in the shape of a statue of Sir Robert which stands in the Town’s centre. He also lends his name to a nearby pub. Many visitors to the statue have, over the years, noted that the buttons of Peel’s waistcoat are actually on the wrong side. This may seem good material for lighthearted banter, but it is infamously noted in Bury folklorethat the artist was so distressed by his error that it eventually lead to his suicide. In a similar way to blackpudding, the modern Police force somewhat splits opinion. It seems that, as a town, we were not born to seek consensus.
Before I move on to the fourthpoint, I will highlight a few points that are also worth of mention. Bury’shistory largely centres around the cotton trade. It was once a large mill town and the football club’s badge shows both a cotton plant and the Flying Shuttle which revolutionised the industry. The Flying Shuttle was invented by John Kay, another of Bury’s famous sons. The author of the ‘Just William’ books, Richmal Crompton, was born in the town and Victoria Wood is another ‘girl done good’. The band ‘Elbow’ are also from Bury. The town is namechecked in teh TV series Porridge and was home to radio favourite Mike Read. Read is also noted as a famous fan of Bury FC, a point which brings me neatly onto my fourth nugget of Knowledge, essentially the point of this piece.
Bury has one thing that makes it part of an elite club. It has a professional football team, playing in the Football League. There are afterallonly 92 of us. Since joining the league and winning the Second Division in their first season, 1894, they have never lost their place. Not bad for a club once dubbed a “tax dodge for Liverpool”. Like all football teams we have a nickname. Although ’The Shakers’ may seem a slightly odd moniker, but the story behind it, which sees our Chairman at the time, a Mr J.T. Ingham, answer a question on what were Bury’s chances of beating the stronger Blackburn Rovers in the 1892 LancashireCup final with the wonderful “We’ll shake ‘em, in fact we are the Shakers”
Without wishing to recount the entire history of Bury FC, there are some points which are worthy of mention. Bury have lifted the FA Cup on two occasions. The first of these was in 1900 when the Shakers saw off Southampton in the final with a 4-0 win. They were back again three years later to again lift the famous cup. This time hammering Derby County. The 6-0 scoreline remains the biggest FA Cup Final win in the history of the game.
Bury’s drop into the Division 3 North in 1957 signalled the start of a period of oscillating between the bottom divisions. This was rudely interupted between 1995 and 1997 though when manager Stan Ternent steered ‘us’, after my birth in 1991 I was already an avid fan just as my Dad had been when my Grandfather first took him to Gigg Lane in the 1960s, to back-to-back promotions from the Third Division (now League 2) to the First (now The Championship). Legends were made in the forms of Dean ‘Deano’ Kiely, Chris Lucketti and my all time footballing hero Mark ‘Spike’ Carter. Complete with my middle name of ‘David Lee’, after the lightening quick Bury winger of the time, I thought watching Bury was nothing but a long road of success.
The bubble, though, was soon to burst. Stan Ternent’sdecision that he had ‘taken us as far as he could’ (don’t you just hate that phrase!) as well as the quick exit of out main financialbacker began a slide backwards. This was compounded by some poor managerial appointments and the eventual farce of entering the 2007/08 season with Keith Alexander as Director of Football and Chris Casper as manager, the footballing equivalent of asking Marx and Mussolini to co-write a manifesto.
So why now? Why in the midst of all this doom and gloom do I want to put the misery and pain onto paper? Well its all a bit different now. Keith Alexander and Chris Casper are gone and in their place stands Alan Knill. The one time Shakers’ solid centre half is now Lord of the Manor. After taking over in February of the 07/08 season, Knill’ssimple but effective style of ‘proper’ football combined with honest interviews and some impressive signings (Goalkeeper Wayne Brown, Defender Efe Sodje and Midfielder Stephen Dawson aswell as the appointment of an experienced assistant in the form of Chris Wilder and even Neil Cutler as Goalkeeping coach) have made the ‘Ginger Messiah’ a firm favourite with the Gigg Lane faithful.
Maybe I want to chronicle the final season before I go to University, and therefore the final one for a while in which I am likely to see more than half of the games. Maybe I think that documenting the season will somehow help it be successful. For once Bury FC feels like a club which is going forwards and not backwards. The club’s official motto is ‘Vincit Omnia Industria’, roughly translated as ‘Hard Work Conquers All’, but there is a new ‘unofficial’ motto amongst the fans. As I prepare to take my seat in the South Stand, noted as the ‘moaner’s’ stand by the way, on August 9th, I keep in my heart our new battle cry, ‘In Knilly We Trust’. Indeed we do.
P.S. All blogs from me will appear in the ‘normal’ font. Those from the Rochdale side will appear in itallics.
Tags: Bury FC, Football, League Two, Rochdale FC
