Bury captain Neil Danns says the club's expulsion from the Football League has "destroyed lives".

The 36-year-old made 39 appearances in all competitions last season as The Shakers were promoted to League One despite all their off-the-field problems.

Danns watched on like fans as 134 years of history unravelled in recent weeks, the club ultimately thrown out of the league on Tuesday night after no takeover was agreed.

The Gigg Lane club, two-time FA Cup winners, now face an uncertain future having become the first club expelled from the league since 1992.

Appearing on talkSPORT, the midfielder had a direct message for owner Steve Dale.

"I would say look what you've done,” Danns said.

"This should never have happened.

“If you thought you could not move this club forward in a positive way you should never have taken over because you've literally destroyed lives, because that's what this football club meant to so many fans.

"When you see the devastation of the fans I just think I have to say something.

"It's unbelievable. I still can't believe it."

A skeleton squad has been training under new manager Paul Wilkinson, appointed after Ryan Lowe’s departure to Plymouth.

Players, like Danns, were waiting on news of contracts and hoping to get out on the pitch but saw the first six games of the season suspended by the EFL who didn’t receive the reassurances they required from Dale about the club’s finances.

"We have been in as normal, training,” said the former Bolton, Leicester and Crystal Palace man.

“I don't think anyone really believed that this was going to happen.

"We were just preparing every single week as though the next game was going to be on, the next game was going to be on.

"For it to happen so suddenly, it's still really unbelievable.

“For a club with so much history and that has added so much to the league, for it to just be gone like that is just unimaginable."

After the euphoria of promotion as League Two runners-up last season, Danns’ concern is for the families in the area who won’t be able to watch their Shakers on a Saturday afternoon.

"I've come to have a special bond with the fans and created some amazing memories, especially last year,” he said.

"At this moment in time I just feel for them the most because you have got people who have been going to the game for years.

“It's like every story, you go to the game with your grandad, your mum, your dad, your brothers, it's such a community. It means so much to people.

"For me, it's starting to hit me harder because I have got young sons myself. 

“I know what it is like to take them to watch my boyhood team Liverpool and the bond that gives us. To see that taken away from future fans is just devastating.

"Football brings not just football on the pitch but it is so much more than that. This whole situation just does not feel real."