A GROUP of Bury supporters who believe they were branded “keyboard cowards” in a statement released by the club’s board have gone public to demand greater clarity of the Shakers’ finances.

A statement from Bury directors, published in the Bury Times last week, was critical of a “small core” of fans who had “taken it upon themselves” to “dig dirt” on the current board and chairman Stewart Day and making anonymous posts on the club’s message board, which has since been closed down.

While no supporters were named in the statement, a group of former message board users who believe the slight was directed at them have written an open letter to the Bury Times.

In it, Andy Ashworth, Andy Barlow, Richard Beedie, Stuart Cook, Dominic Martinez, Brian Richardson, John Risby, Alan Roddie and Chris Stanley praised the work done by the current board since rescuing the club from a winding up order last summer. But they demanded more information about how much money the club had spent and where that money had come from following a raft of high-profile summer signings.

“Looking on, without the benefit of knowing the current board’s business plan, we see money being spent freely on new players, price reductions and extra commercial staff and we worry, given how things have turned out in the past,” they said in the letter.

“We admit, this summer’s signings do have us excited about our chances for the coming season, but like many other fans - up to 43 per cent according to a recent poll on the club’s former message board – we worry at just how we can afford all this.”

And they added: “The absence of the fans’ forum, the delayed AGM, suspected use of the ground as collateral to raise funds and the lack of involvement of Forever Bury and other supporters groups in working out the way forward makes us concerned.”

In last week’s statement, the Bury board announced the AGM, postponed from January, would now be held in September, when shareholders would be updated on the club’s accounts and its future strategy.

But the fans’ group, who cited the near collapse of the club after overspending during the Hugh Eaves era, said only hard facts would appease their concern.

“All we ask is that we have a little more clarity, a little more meaningful dialogue, a little more understanding of where we have been and why we are concerned – then maybe we can all move forward together,” they said.

“We desperately want the club to succeed, but as has been proven time and time again at Bury, we can only do that if the legal and financial owners of the club work with and embrace the moral and emotional owners – the fans – so we can trust and support each other."

 

Read the full letter from the Bury fans group below:

WE are a group of individual season-ticket holders, lifeline members, Forever Bury members and supporters of Bury FC.

Collectively, we have been watching Bury for more than 250 years as well as following in our parents’ and grandparents’ footsteps.

During those years we have spent thousands of pounds on tickets, programmes, replica shirts and various other merchandise just because it had a Bury logo on it.

We’ve also donated hundreds of volunteering hours to help out the club, whether it has been through Forever Bury, as collectors of lifeline/treasureline or shaking buckets in times of need. We are also, apparently, “keyboard cowards”.

We thought we would let you know who we are so we cannot be accused of hiding behind message board names.

We’re Bury fans - not Bolton fans, not Rochdale fans – we are proud Bury fans.

We’re Bury fans who care passionately about our club and who is in charge of it, Bury fans who want to know their club is in safe hands.

We believe we are some of the so-called negative fans referred to in the club’s recent statement, published on the back page of last week’s Bury Times.

We have no personal axes to grind with chairman Stewart Day - as such - it’s just we’ve been here before.

Perhaps not with someone as forward-thinking as Day and the current board - many of the measures they have brought in and intend to bring in certainly bring the club into the 21st Century, something that we have been crying out for as fans for many years – but we have been asked to trust previous boards and look where that got us.

The last board was made up of highly successful people in their own businesses but who ultimately made a mess of things at Bury.

Last summer was not the first time we found ourselves in such a mess.

Names like Hugh Eaves, Alex Tarsus, Albert Doweck and Terry Robinson might not mean anything to the current board, but to Bury fans these names conjure up some of the very worst memories.

Let’s take Eaves as an example. Much like Day, he had an ambition of getting us into what is now the Championship. He first came to the club in the late 1980s and we started to spend beyond our means as we pushed for promotion to what was Division Two in those days.

In 1999, our world came crashing down around us.

It transpired that Eaves hadn’t been as conscientious about his own business dealings with colleagues as he had been using his own personal wealth to fund us. The man we trusted blindly had to sell us quickly.
Only, ultimately, due to the generosity of the football world at large did we survive.

We trusted Eaves, just like we’re being asked to trust the Bury board now.

Looking on, without the benefit of knowing the current board’s business plan, we see money being spent freely on new players, price reductions and extra commercial staff and we worry, given how things have turned out in the past.

We admit, this summer’s signings do have us excited about our chances for the coming season, but like many other fans - up to 43 per cent according to a recent poll on the club’s former message board – we worry at just how we can afford all this.

Taking into account information already in the public domain, especially on the financial side, it does seem to us that there is a lot of money going out, but no information about what money is coming in.

We don’t want to come across as negative, we just want to know that we really can afford all of this.

All we ask is that we have a little more clarity, a little more meaningful dialogue, a little more understanding of where we have been and why we are concerned – then maybe we can all move forward together.

The absence of the fans’ forum, the delayed AGM, suspected use of the ground as collateral to raise funds and the lack of involvement of Forever Bury and other supporters groups in working out the way forward makes us concerned.

We desperately want the club to succeed, but as has been proven time and time again at Bury, we can only do that if the legal and financial owners of the club work with and embrace the moral and emotional owners – the fans – so we can trust and support each other.
Yours sincerely,

Andy Ashworth, Retired regional credit manager
Andy Barlow, management consultant
Richard Beedie, senior underwriter
Stuart Cook, accountant
Dominic Martinez, business development consultant
Brian Richardson, business adviser
John Risby, managing director
Alan Roddie, IT manager
Chris Stanley, area manager