Like so many other football supporters around the country, I was plunged into a state of shocked silence when the news of Bury's expulsion from the EFL filtered through during the early hours of Tuesday morning.
That such a harrowing turn came mere hours after a last-gasp takeover bid seemed to indicate that there was indeed light at the end of the tunnel, will feel like a final punch to the face for supporters who have suffered so much in recent times. To watch your club crumble into nothingness, and a rich history diminish into faded memories, simply doesn't bear thinking about. It's incomprehensible. As complex and unfathomable as the intricacies of Bury's demise are, the viewpoint of the fans is simple. They just want to watch their team play football, and that's been taken from them in the cruellest way possible due to incompetence from top to bottom. Stewart Day lit the fuse on Bury's problems then Steve Dale, a callous man who will never understand the pain he's caused, made it so much worse. The EFL just watched, like a motionless spectator rather than a supposed governing body who are meant to protect each of it's clubs; when they finally acted, it was to punish the innocent bystanders while the guilty perpetrators walk away and wash their hands of it. They've lost nothing, but the fans and the staff have lost everything. They're dazed, they're confused, a piece of their hearts have been snatched from them. Sure, they might reform as a new entity, but it may never feel the same and the pain that has been caused on this fateful week would have left permanent wounds. The looks on the faces of the Bury supporters shown on the TV coverage have been nothing short of heartbreaking. Contrary to some public opinion, though, it wasn't the responsibility of big clubs to bail Bury out, although when you see that 15/20 top flight teams were in favour of contributing to former Premier League Chief Executive Richard Scudamore's ridiculous 5 million pound departing gift yet not a single one of them even put a tweet out about Bury, it's perhaps an indictment of the current state of English football. The gap widens and the imbalance increases. So, in a couple of weeks when the situation dies down in the public eye, everything will return to normal. Sky Sports, tabloids and websites will go back to telling us how much money Alexis Sanchez is on per week while Bury will be consigned to the history books, their 134-year history only existing in the minds of those who have lived it. This week, football fans have asked so many questions as to how and why this mess unfolded. However, the one question at the forefront of so many people's minds was this: What if it was me? What if it was my club? It's made a lot of people reflect. As people woke up on Tuesday morning, every lower league football fan would've thought how grateful they are to have a club with which they can share so many memories. The thought of it one day being taken all away is bad enough, but the reality would leave everlasting pain. We all think it would never be our club, but this sorry mess acts as a timely reminder of the true fragility of lower-league football. If it can happen to Bury and nearly happen to Bolton, it can happen to any of us. That's why I'm so glad that my club, Dagenham, seem to have a stable future under the astute ownership of the Americans. Our financial struggles weren't nearly as bad as Bury's, but there was still a time where our long-term future looked somewhat uncertain. So, as we go to Chesterfield this weekend, there will be a lot more perspective and tolerance. A refereeing blunder will seem a bit less frustrating, a last minute defeat won't be the end of the world. We'll exit that stadium, regardless of the result, grateful that we can do it all again next week. That's a luxury Bury fans will never have again.
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January 2024
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