Written by Max & Emma
Ground #66
Saturday 16th November 2024
NWCL Premier Division (Step 5)
Bury FC 8 – 0 Longridge Town FC
Attendance: 2,983
Entry: £10
Bury FC were formed in 1885 and were elected into the Football League in 1894. The club played in the top level of English football for 22 seasons and won the FA Cup twice, lifting the trophy in 1900 and 1903.
In recent times the club spent the majority of their time bouncing between League 1 and 2 and in the 2018/19 season came runners up in League 2 to win promotion to the 3rd tier.
However the club would not start the following season as due to long term financial issues and mismanagement the club were expelled from the league. A phoenix club, AFC Bury, were formed in their place and began life in the North West Counties League, 6 divisions lower than the level the original team should have been playing at.
Due to the owner of the original club still having ownership of the ground the newly formed club were forced to play their games at nearby Radcliffe FC.
After a lot of infighting and politics between Bury fans, many of which disagreed with the formation of the new club while the old one still technically existed, the outcome is now, 3 years later, the club are back in their Gigg Lane home and have been reinstated with the original Bury FC name.
After 2 years of play off heartbreak the club, now hopefully unified once again, will be looking to climb the pyramid back to where they once were.
We were joined at the game today by Emma’s cousin Danielle and her partner James who live less than a 2 minute walk from the ground. We started the day with a walk into town and had a look round the world famous Bury market. We then ticked off the local Wetherspoons for a pre match pint before heading to the ground.
Today saw Bury, who were in 2nd place with numerous games in hand, taking on Longridge Town in 14th. It was the visitors though who would make the more promising start as they looked confident on the ball and created the first couple of chances, without really troubling the Bury keeper.
On the 15 minute mark Bury started to get a foothold in the game and after a wonderful cross into the box was put into his own net by an unfortunate Longridge defender, the visitors heads dropped and carnage insued. Within 20 minutes of opening the scoring, Bury were 5-0 up!
The second half began and the Bury fans to our left were asking for double figures. For a time this didn’t look likely as the hosts seemed happy to keep possession and sit on their lead. On the hour mark they got their 6th and after making a number of subs seemed to find a second wind as they showed no mercy piling on the misery for Longridge with goals 7 and 8!
You had to feel for the visitors, who had brought a decent following who were sat opposite us, but sadly for them they had nothing to shout about today as they were completely outplayed by a Bury side that seem to be taking no chances this season after back to back play off loses. They remain unbeaten and on current form look destined for the title and their first promotion in their quest to return to the football league.
Now to rate our afternoon at Gigg Lane:
Location: 7/10
The ground is about a 20 minute walk from the nearest tram stop and Burys town centre. You can get the train into Manchester and then take the 40 minute tram ride out, so is easily done if you fancy a drink instead of driving. There are plenty of pubs around Bury town centre for you to visit and there is also the Swan & Cemetery pub which is 10 minutes down the road from the ground itself and a nice little watering hole for home and visiting fans.
Kit: 7/10
Bury FC’s kit includes a white shirt with a faint triangle pattern and a sponsor that fits nicely on the front. It had a blue collar and sleeve trim with matching blue shorts ad socks. We thought this looked a very smart kit and although you couldn’t see the faint pattern on the shirt from a distance it was a good addition when seen up close.
Facilities: 6/10
Once in the ground you walk around the back of one of the stands until the ground opens up as you make your way towards the South stand. In this corner was a burger van and temporary bar which were nicely located with plenty of space for fans to queue and stand around before the game started.
Under the stand was a small kiosk selling generic football food. This area wasn’t the biggest and was fairly quiet for today’s game, with the majority of people making use of the vans outside.
Obviously this ground is very different to most at step five, although a lot of it is positive one thing that this ground misses that many non league grounds have is an indoor clubhouse. Luckily the weather was nice today but I can imagine queuing at the outdoor burger van on a rainy Tuesday night wouldn’t be much fun.
Look: 10/10
Gigg Lane was built and designed for a club in the upper divisions of English football. So when comparing it to other grounds at their current step five level is almost unfair. The stadium is an all seater with a capacity of 12,500, currently home fans are located in the South stand with away in the Neville Neville stand opposite (and no that is not a typo! The stand is named after Gary Nevilles father who was the clubs commercial director).
The stands behind the goals are not currently used with one being filled with Bury FC flags.
One interesting feature of this ground, which is something we are yet to see in any other ground of this size, is the fact that entry to all four sides of the ground are located through the main stand side. When we visited this ground back in 2019 we were sat in the away end with the Crewe Alexandra fans. For this we entered through the turnstiles on the left, for todays game we entered on the right hand side of the stand and then had to walk all they way around the back of the stand behind the goal to get to our seats on the far side.
Food and Drink: 8/10
Wow, what choices we were faced with today. First off, I need to mention the bar – walking into the ground I noticed a port-a-cabin with ‘The Waterhole Bar’ on a sign above it and a very good selection of drinks. Guinness, Poretti, Thatchers Gold to name a few but the thing that caught my eye was the three pump Thatchers they had! Orange, Cloudy Lemon and Apple & Blackberry to choose from made me a very happy visitor to the ground today.
Half time rolled around and we became a little hungry so was time to check out the food. They had one cabin selling loaded fries, burgers and hotdogs with an additional food hut under the stand selling pies. Between the four of us we had fries with curry sauce, a hot dog and a Chicken Balti pie. Excellent variety of food which was very tasty and helped warm us up in the declining temperatures as the evening crept in.
TOTAL SCORE: 38/50
Thanks to Danielle and James for inviting us to the game and showing us all that Bury had to offer before and after the game. If they play like that every week it wont be long before we will be back!
It was strange to be back at Gigg Lane 5 years after our initial visit with Crewe in 2019. It’s crazy to think that this ground that once hosted top division football is now home to a club playing in the 9th tier of English Football. Bury fans wont care though, as after years of uncertainty and chaos, they now have a team playing at Gigg Lane, representing the Town again.
Almost 3,000 fans packed into the South Stand for today’s game and the fans to our left didn’t stop singing all game creating an amazing atmosphere. It will be interesting to watch how the club get on going forward and I’m sure we will be back to see them again as they look to rise through the divisions.
If you would like to see where this places Gigg Lane in our Non League Leaderboard click here: NON LEAGUE
If you’d like to see the football league grounds we have visited click here: The 92
Emma’s Ground Guide 