THE owners of Bury FC have revealed the club’s Gigg Lane pitch has already been priced up for a “substantial investement” after match referee Mark Brown was forced to postpone Saturday’s FA Cup first-round tie at home to Cambridge United.

Brown called off the game due to a waterlogged pitch less than four hours before kick off after heavy rain started to fall on an already saturated surface.

But while there was no doubt the conditions were poor, no other game in the Football League or FA Cup fell foul of the weather on Saturday in a fixture list that included Championship matches at Bolton, Burnley, Blackpool and Huddersfield and cup ties at Accrington, Macclesfield, Oldham and Preston.

The late cancellation followed three similar postponements last season, and chief executive Glenn Thomas – who only took over the post in May following a summer buy-out – admitted the new owners were aware of the problem.

“We had someone look at the pitch almost as soon as we took over and are obviously aware that the drainage requires substantial investment,” he said.

“The problem we had was that we just didn’t have enough lead-up time once we had taken over to do a proper job in the summer.

“Basically, the whole drainage system needs digging up and re-doing, but that is going to cost in the region of £40,000 to £50,000 and will have to wait until next year.

“Until then, we actually have some new machinery arriving this week that should help the groundstaff in the short term.”