The League One club are staring into the abyss with their first two fixtures now suspended by the EFL

At Bury’s historic, homely, Gigg Lane stadium, two days before what should have been the start of the season in League One, the ticket office of the newly promoted club was open but doing almost no business and the Shakers superstore was shuttered closed. The car park contained only two cars, the main reception door locked, with no lights on inside. All that was missing was the odd clump of tumbleweed, blowing across the ground.

The EFL has suspended Bury’s opening two games – against MK Dons and at Accrington on 10 August – a measure nobody can recall happening before, certainly not at Bury, established in 1885, who have fielded a team through every Football League season and every tumult of history since 1894. Yet in 2019 the owner, Steve Dale, has not satisfied the league that Bury have the money for hefty wages still owed to the players who won promotion – now, like the then manager Ryan Lowe, mostly departed for other clubs – or to last this season.

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Dale, who bought the overspending club for £1 in December from Stewart Day, a property developer several of whose businesses were falling insolvent, said at the time he saw it as a philanthropic venture to help young people, and that he could “bring business acumen to resolve the problems”. Since then, the players won a remarkable promotion in May then revealed they had not been paid since February and called on Dale to go; office staff complained of “abysmal treatment” and several were then sacked by a letter informing them the club was insolvent. In June Dale completed a company voluntary arrangement that commits to paying unsecured creditors 25p for every £1 owed, which saw off a winding-up petition.

He has recruited a manager, Paul Wilkinson, who is understood to have six players on contracts, but Bury are under an embargo preventing them signing any more until the EFL has seen proof their wages will be paid. Dale has insisted in defiant statements on the club’s website that he has indeed provided “proof of funds”, and while Gigg Lane wears the look of a dying club, there is apparently still vibrant football activity at their training base, Manchester City’s old complex in Carrington.

The supporters’ trust, Forever Bury, has a home in a cabin on the edge of the Gigg Lane car park, a haven of warmth, love for the club, and celebration of its upstanding history. An honours board remembers men, now passed away, “whose contribution marks them out, be it for their loyalty, sacrifice or endeavours”. They include early chairmen and players; Bob Stokoe, who was a Shakers player, player-manager and manager; and Neville Neville, husband of Jill who remains the club secretary, the parents of Gary, Phil and Tracey. A stalwart as commercial director, Neville was instrumental in saving the club after it fell into administration in 2002, with another on the honours board, the then chairman Fred Mason.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The Bury superstore was shut on Thursday and advertising last season’s kit. Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian

Forever Bury was formed in response to that crisis and the trust’s chairman, Dave Giffard, gave up his job as a computer manager to become fully involved. A Shaker since he went to his first match at Gigg Lane, enthralled, in 1959 aged eight, Giffard has never been paid as the trust chairman, and for years before he finally became a pensioner, he tried to do it on £1 a day.

“If I needed to go to Manchester [which is eight miles away] I walked,” he says casually. “I got a large map of our area and walked systematically street by street getting to every company, letting them know we are here and asking if they could help. We got a lot of kit that way, for the trust and the club.”

The 2002 rescue was memorably helped by donations from thousands of sympathetic football supporters nationwide and even internationally, who had their names stuck on the backs of seats in the stadium as a thank you. These days, many worthy causes compete for crowdfunding, and football people are more financially literate and wearier of clubs in crisis. Some fans have reacted to Bury’s crumbling with resentment at the promotion, won with a team who the club could not afford to pay.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A sign advertising Bury’s next game has no answer for fans. Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian

Dominic Martinez, one among a small group of supporters who sounded the alarm about Day’s financial practices after a loan was taken out in 2014 secured on Gigg Lane at 138% annual interest, believes the crisis highlights inadequacies in the game’s rules. The EFL has said Dale took the club over from Day without ever providing proof of funds as required under its regulations, yet he remains the owner and sole director, insisting he can turn it all round. “It seems the EFL rules are not adequate to prevent clubs overspending,” Martinez says, “and as they are limited companies, once somebody owns a club, they have complete power.”

He says he always felt Gigg Lane was home from his first match, aged 13 in 1988, a 0-0 draw with Port Vale, and has taken his children, Lawrence, 14, George, 11, and Ana, six, since they were babies. Worried this could really be the end for the club, he and George went to watch the friendly at Radcliffe Borough on Tuesday, at which Bury fielded mostly a youth team.

“We went to Gigg Lane afterwards just to see it,” he says. “It was emotional. George can’t understand why his club might cease to exist. He’s heartbroken.”

James Bentley, the author of lovingly researched books about the club, most recently Things Can Only Get Better, about the rise in the 1990s when Bury played in the Championship and famously beat Manchester City 1-0 at Maine Road, describes the uncertainty as “agony”.

He recalls the long family tradition of support; his great-grandfather, a prisoner in the first world war, taking James’ father in the 50s, who then took James in the 80s. He feels some shame about the small businesses who are being left 75% unpaid under the CVA but still defends the importance to the town of the club surviving.

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“We have to keep reminding people that Bury FC is bigger than the last two men to have held the keys,” he says, “which is why it can’t be allowed to die.”

Forever Bury is keeping as involved as possible in developments, trying to play a constructive role in finding a solution.

“Fans are the emotional owners of a club,” Giffard says. “If it goes, it’s a bereavement.”