Chairman Stewart Day: Bury are ahead of schedule in my five-year plan to reach the Championship

The Yorkshire-born property developer revealed his ambitious plan when buying the club back in the summer of 2013 and has renewed his vision for the future in a statement released today.

The Shakers were in danger of being wound up when Day bought them following relegation to League Two.

They initially struggled under the guidance of manager Kevin Blackwell and were battling to stay in the Football League when Day appointed David Flitcroft as manager in December 2013.

But Flitcroft led them to promotion in his first full season in charge and they are now just four points off the play-off places in the third tier.

Day believes that rapid progress has put them back on track to reach his goal of Championship football.

He set out his renewed vision for the future in a statement released by the club on New Year's Eve, focusing on the development of the youth set-up and the club's young fan base as the key to making the next step.

Here is his statement in full:

May I take this opportunity to thank you for your support over the last 12 months and wish you all a very happy New Year.

I wanted to write this statement as we are now coming up to two-and-a-half years since I got involved in Bury Football Club.

I wanted to reflect on this time and how far I feel we have progressed as a football club both on and off the pitch.

When I came into the club, I set out a goal that I wanted to achieve Championship football within a five-year period, a goal which I knew would take a lot of effort and hard work to achieve.

But not only did I want to get into the Championship, I also wanted to have a football club that could sustain itself in the Championship and compete.

I feel that we have achieved great strides in achieving this success, although we are a long way from achieving what I set out to do.

Firstly, bringing David Flitcroft in to the football club two years ago I feel has been the stimulus for us achieving the goals to date by gaining promotion last year from Sky Bet League Two.

League Two is a very difficult league to get out of. You only have to look at clubs like Plymouth and Portsmouth, who both have incredible fan bases.

It just shows that having that support, the size of a club does not always guarantee you success.

Two years ago, when David came into the club, we were languishing at the foot of the Football League.

Relegation from the Football League was not an option for me! I had to move quickly to bring in someone that shared the same vision as myself.

At that time, I didn’t feel Bury FC had an identity or indeed a winning mentality.

We were seen from the outside as a club with a small club mentality.

This was something I was extremely keen to come away from and I felt we needed to bring the professionalism into the club.

David and the coaching staff did a fantastic job in keeping us in the league.

I firmly believe if we had another four or five games that year, we would have made the play-offs and who knows where we would have finished? It could have been a remarkable achievement.

In the summer of 2014 we sat down to plan our challenge for promotion out of League Two.

This enabled us to go in the transfer market and identify key players that we thought would lead us to success, some of the decisions we got right, some of them we got wrong.

Ultimately, through the course of the season, we achieved our aim in promotion to League One, albeit on the final day of the season.

Those scenes after the final whistle at Prenton Park, and back here at Gigg Lane, will be something I will never forget.

They made me extremely proud of what we had achieved, especially with the fact that we achieved promotion with a club-record total of 85 points in one season.

Contrary to reports, we were not the highest budget in the league and we stayed well within the Financial Fair Play rules.

It shows just how hard the coaching staff had worked on bringing the recruits in.

Our aim this season was to make sure that we were able to compete and play attractive football as we wanted to continue building and moving forward.

Taking on the fantastic facilities at Carrington as our training complex enabled us to bring in players that wanted to be part of something special. Somewhere that they wanted to improve and stimulate them to get better.

We also believed that we needed to strengthen in certain areas as one of the hardest things in any league is to score goals.

This has been proven, where other clubs in League One and other divisions have spent significant amounts of money on transfer fees in bringing in players to do just that, score goals.

We quickly identified that we could bring two top-quality strikers into the squad to add to our current crop and both would be on free transfers - incredible business considering what other clubs are paying in transfer fees and not getting the same return as we are.

In reflection on the season so far, I think the progress of the club has been fantastic, both on and off the field.

We 12th in League One, four points off the play-offs, and into the third round of the FA Cup, something the club hasn’t achieved for a number of years and certainly not in my tenure.

We have also gone to Sheffield United and put in a superb performance to win 3-1, something the club has not done since 1925. We have beaten the likes of Walsall, Burton, Coventry and Peterborough in the league - all teams who are currently in the top six. And we have beaten Wigan in both cup competitions - a team that won the FA Cup two years ago, the same time I got involved in the club.

The commercial team is growing from strength to strength each season.

Our partner programme is one of the best in the country and our attendances are increasing each season.

It is great seeing a younger generation coming to the games and the singing section are making some great noise supporting the lads.

We are looking to roll out a Junior Shakers programme in 2016. I have pledged that we will go into every school in the borough and talk about the club to help raising our profile.

The Junior Shakers Club will be something that young supporters can feel part of and feel a real value in being a member.

There are a number of events planned for 2016 that will bring in revenue for the club, something with the current stadium format that we are restricted in doing.

We are unlike most other clubs in this division, which have corporate boxes, function rooms etc. that enables them to bring in significant income away from football match days.

Again, the work that chief executive officer Glenn Thomas puts in organising our events and working with the commercial team is tremendous, which continues to bring new income streams into the business.

We have also been able to develop and sell a young asset to a Premier League Club in Matty Foulds, who I think will have a very bright future.

One thing we made sure of was that we got the right deal for Bury FC.

This, again, is something we haven’t done as a business for a number of years.

We have some bright prospects coming through with a lot of clubs taking interest in our youth players and whilst we look to develop them into the first-team environment, sometimes we have to realise financially what is best for the player and the club to be able to keep on progressing.

We have also been able to reject a number of offers from Premier League and Championship clubs for players within our academy structure, even rejecting a six-figure sum for a player which we felt did not represent the best value for the player or the club as we believe we can develop the player far greater under our regime.

There are a number of new ideas we will be implementing into our academy teams next year which will allow them to spend more time at Carrington and work with our coaches to develop to the highest of standards in order that we can produce players like Matty on a more regular basis.

The academy and the youth team are something we have taken back ownership of in the past two years and an incredible amount of work has gone into what we are looking to achieve.

But, again, we are still a long way off delivering the product of what we expect to represent Bury FC. This will come in time with the new systems that are being put in place.

We are also looking at implementing an Under-21s squad, which will allow us to develop the transition from youth team to first team.

The likes of Scott Burgess, Anthony Dudley, Khalid Mohammed and Jack Ruddy, to name a few, have all had first-team experience this season, which will allow us to develop them further in game environments on a regular basis, whilst also looking at recruiting talent from other clubs who we feel we can nurture into first-team regulars and develop local talent.

As some of you know, I am extremely passionate about football and I visit a number of other clubs, looking at ideas on ways we can improve both on and off the field.

One club that I spoke with, who have achieved numerous promotions, said: "There will always be challenges in a football club and you will not get everyone to agree with the decisions you make, but if everyone is pulling in the same direction this will help you achieve what you want to."

It will take time to get to where we want to be and we need to build the business back up to one that can be sustainable and even profitable, but time is what is required, which is why I set out a five-year plan as I feel this will enable us to have a realistic opportunity of getting to where we want to be.

We go into every game wanting to win and if we get promotion to the Championship before then fantastic, but we need to make sure we keep doing the right things.

I feel, on reflection, over the past two years the progress of the club has been phenomenal and for me this is just the start of what we are building.

We are, if anything, ahead of schedule, but with working within the FFP regulations and one of the lowest budgets for League One, we are able to build a squad that is extremely competitive for this League and I for one am extremely looking forward to 2016.

Thank you again for your continued support and I look forward to the second half of this season as we continue to build.

Stweart Day