There’s a few great footballing cities in the UK. London, obviously. Birmingham. Glasgow. Sheffield. And Manchester.

Manchester’s renowned for its footballing culture, past and present. Clubs from Manchester have won 17 Premier League titles, 9 League Cups, 8 FA Cups, 2 Champions Leagues, a Europa League and 13 Community Shields (alright, nobody cares about the Community Shield, but still, that’s pretty impressive) since 1992. The only thing, though, is that in a city region with seven league clubs (and eight as of next year), only three of these clubs have won any of that silverware, and one of those three – Wigan – has only won one trophy in that entire time. And Wigan’s almost in Liverpool anyway.

Basically, Greater Manchester’s got two footballing heavyweights – Manchester United and Manchester City. Most other places can’t sustain one club of that size, let alone two. But the problems arise for the other clubs in the Manchester area – Bury, Bolton, Wigan, Oldham, Rochdale. All of these clubs bar Rochdale have had financial problems in recent years. Competition for supporters is fierce considering the presence of frequent title-winners United and City, and Bury, Oldham and Rochdale all got average attendances of roughly 4,000 in 2018-19, near the bottom of their leagues. Wigan and Bolton fared a bit better, with 11,000 and 14,000 respectively, but this is still low compared to most of the Championship.

It is clear that Manchester clubs have a financial problem, over-reliant on owners’ cash, struggling to attract football-related investment and high attendances and merchandise sales in a city with two of the biggest clubs in the country. In fact, there’s a danger that over time, these sides could become little more than feeder clubs for the big Manchester teams – which would be a tragedy for all involved.

Speaking of a tragedy, let’s go to Bury FC. Bury is a small town on the outskirts on Manchester, with a small, cosy ground, Gigg Lane. It’s not a bad ground for away fans, but it’s not in perfect condition, and the toilets are something else. Again, not encouraging investment. There’s not a long queue of prospective owners lining up to enquire as to the club’s future. And this makes it even more reliant on the current owner.

Bury’s owner since December 2018 has been Steve Dale, owner of Terrapin Ltd., an ‘off-site modular building construction’ business based in Milton Keynes. Whilst I don’t have a clue what the business actually does, I’d suggest that the location of the business, several hours away from Bury, doesn’t suggest that Dale is fully committed to the football project. Yes, big club are owned by overseas corporations, but they often have a head based in the UK – like Ed Woodward at Manchester United, representing the Glazers. Lower-league clubs often have owners who are either foreign and rich, or fans of the club. Dale appears to be neither – stating that he bought the club because it was a community club, and he liked community enterprises. Hmmm.

Dale has also suffered from leukaemia in the past, and recent reports suggest he may be undergoing a relapse at present. Nonetheless, cruel as it is to say, it seems a fortuitous time to suffer a relapse. Bury have failed to pay their players and staff consistently over the last few months – fans raised money to pay for food vouchers in the absence of a regular wage – and the Bury players issued a statement two weeks ago asking their owner to go.

Dale’s reason for his takeover was that he wanted to own a football club and get involved in the community. But he put the club up for sale in April, despite Bury’s on-pitch success, and the club have now been promoted to League One – so what’s the problem? Dale cites huge losses and debts – in the excess of £1.8 million. But he gives little explanation as to where these problems have come from, and how he failed to identify them before he took over.

The last owner, Stewart Day, is now in serious financial trouble himself, with his companies owing some £27 million. But, whilst Day was a problematic owner, it is clear that Dale has either failed to do his due diligence on the club, was conned by Day, or is seeking to strip Bury bare. It’s unlikely that Day successfully tricked Dale (I really wish they had more distinct names, this is getting confusing) when he sold the club in December – or Dale would have come out and blamed all the problems on the last chairman. And, if Dale is the successful businessman he claims to be (and you can’t buy a football club without having made a fair bit of money), it seems just as unlikely that he’d not research a risky financial takeover properly. The answer seems to be that Dale is looking to profit from the club and move on – or, perhaps, wanted to profit from the club, but now regrets his decision. This seems even more likely when you consider that Dale appears to have turned down a recent bid for the club; he’s interested in boosting his own finances, or recouping his losses, whilst the players and staff go unpaid.

These are all allegations. I’m not a Bury fan. I’m not from Manchester. I don’t know Stewart Day, or Steve Dale. I don’t know what ‘off-site modular building construction’ is. However, the situation at the club looks increasingly dodgy, and I fear that a historically influential club – an institution in the town of Bury, which played a vital role in the very beginnings of competitive English football – is facing extinction. Football fans everywhere should be concerned.

A link to a fundraising page can be found here: http://www.gofundme.com/save-bury-football-club