Bury FC is on the brink. The club is in absolute turmoil off the pitch with players and staff having not been paid in months and the club under threat of extinction amid a turbulent financial crisis. Owner Steve Dale is attempting to settle the club’s debts and they have been given six weeks to get their house in order ahead of the new season.

One man who knows all too much about this situation is Bury left-back Chris Stokes. Having joined from Coventry last summer he was expecting to play a key part in Bury’s promotion push as they looked to return to League One at the first attempt. In fact, he did exactly that as the Shakers finished second and Stokes made it back-to-back promotions from League Two.

But things were not as good as they appeared on the pitch. The 29-year-old has not been paid since March and is now being forced to search for another club, given the financial situation he and his family are now in. Speaking exclusively to The Sportsman for the dog-based series ‘The Sportman’s Best Friend’ he said: “I got paid March’s wage a few weeks ago, but apart from that I’ve not had payment in April and May. There’s been no communication from the chairman or the club, and obviously, now we don’t have a manager, so it’s a situation where we don’t know what’s going on.

“We feel like supporters really because we don’t have any information, so we need the chairman to come out and give us something, otherwise we are going to lose the players.

“If not, it’s going to be a situation where we start the season in six weeks' time and we’re not going to have a manager or a team to go forward with, so it’s going to be a shame because last season was really successful for the club.

“We’ve got back into League One and look as if we are going in the right direction but obviously it looks like it’s not going to go that way at the moment. There is time and hopefully if there are new owners who are interested in taking this club forward, they will come forward as quickly as possible because this situation can’t go on for much longer.”

Stokes went on to speak of the help the Professional Footballers’ Association have provided to the players and the staff in a worrying time for all involved with the club: “The PFA have been really supportive, Simon Barker (Senior Executive of PFA) has come in and told us what our rights are as players and they’ve financially paid us half our wages.

“Obviously without that, us as players and staff wouldn’t have been able to carry on with our lives as we have families, we have mortgages to pay.

“At the end of the day this is League Two it’s not the Premier League, it’s not glitz and glamour, so obviously we don’t get paid, then we can’t pay our bills

“At the end of the day this is League Two it’s not the Premier League, it’s not glitz and glamour, so obviously we don’t get paid, then we can’t pay our bills and we can’t continue what we started as obviously it was a really good season.

“We are thankful to the PFA, who did pay us and gave us that support financially.”