BURY boss David Flitcroft has assured fans he will remain loyal to the football club, despite bookmakers linking him with the vacant manager’s job at Bolton Wanderers.

The Bolton-born manager distanced himself from the speculation, saying he has a project to see through at the JD Stadium after taking the Shakers back to the top of League Two with a 2-0 victory at home to Tranmere.

“One thing the Bury fans know I am about is loyalty,” said Flitcroft, who was appointed last December after being sacked from his first managerial job at Barnsley.

“I was in a dark place before I came here. When you get sacked as a manager from your first job it is a tough experience to take and I don’t think I really reflected on it until after keeping the club (Bury) in the division (last season).

“In the summer, myself and the chairman sat down at length and talked about our plan and what we were going to do and I have got a project here to see through and be a part of.”

Bury chairman Stewart Day heaped the pressure on the 40-year-old coach at the start of his reign by stating his aim was to take the club to the Championship within five years.

But Flitcroft rubbished any thoughts he may be tempted to take a short-cut – with Bolton - back to a division he cut his teeth in as Tykes boss.

“I really do love coming to this place to work, I have got a fantastic staff and a fantastic group of players, so I am just enjoying working for my chairman and the board because they are good people,” he said.

“There is a good football club here - there is a good vibe about it. It is as professionally run as any Championship club out there, barring the training facility.

“We do everything right and we will continue to do that, so I enjoy my work – I am working for good people.”

Flitcroft, who set up the Strikerz youth football academy in Bolton, is also relishing the chance to develop Bury’s youngsters to help reinforce his first-team “project” – a chance he believes he would not get anywhere else.

“I am able to manage the full football club (at Bury),” he added.

“I look at football as a franchise product. We have tried to franchise it through the first team - we have designed that, we have designed the play, we have designed the competitive edge and the pace and the power and the style.

“What is our job now, and our responsibility, is to try to cascade that down to the under-18s, the u16s, the u15s, u14s right down to the u8s.

“I am as obsessed and as passionate about that as I am about the first team.

“So I am only young, I have got a lot of drive and, as I keep saying, myself and the chairman have probably met each other at the right time in our lives to take this project forward.”