BURY and their supporters face a trip to Stevenage next Tuesday, which is a situation that in this day and age I find to be absolutely ridiculous.

Surely, with modern technology, we can work out a fixture list that ensures football fans can make it to night matches without being forced to take a day off work.

I know this may have been a more difficult challenge this season than most when tackling the League Two programme, with northern clubs vastly outnumbered.

But surely, with the number of midweek games that are played throughout a season, the majority of Bury’s night games could be played against teams like Morecambe, Accrington or Tranmere.

The situation works both ways, with the Shakers, who played at Luton in midweek near the start of the season, set to host them on a Tuesday night next month.

I am sure neither club would have wanted that, with the away team forced into a 350-mile round trip and the home side standing to lose money on gate receipts.

Night matches can be fantastic occasions when grounds are full, so surely it makes sense to try to restrict them to derby games wherever possible.

I don’t know exactly what the solution is. Maybe there could be a bit of give in the system with clubs allowed to get together like the international bosses used to when organising qualification fixtures and talk about possible alternatives.

One interesting aside to this is the potential Bury have to reduce their overall travel costs by winning promotion.

In League Two, there are only nine clubs out of the 24 in the division that are within a two-hour car journey, compared with 15 in League One.

I know Shakers chairman Stewart Day has picked up on this point already.

Promotion could once again see Bury facing local sides Preston, Rochdale and Oldham, not to mention Fleetwood and Crewe.

There are also four big Yorkshire clubs – Sheffield United, Bradford, Doncaster and Barnsley – in the division, while Wigan and Blackpool are fighting against relegation from the Championship.

Shrewsbury and Burton Albion, who are not a million miles away from Bury, are also in the running for automatic promotion from League Two so the quota of clubs within that two-hour radius could increase to a maximum 19.

This is not something that will be, or should be, utmost in the minds of Bury’s players or management, but it would be a welcome bonus for the board if they could get promoted, in terms of cutting costs and improving gate receipts.

And I think it would also be just reward for those preparing for a midweek quest down to Hertfordshire.