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Not for us, but for Bury. i was credit checking a potential customer and decided to nosey onto BFC's file and was (or maybe not) supprised to see a new CCJ for circa £22k lodged only Wednesday this week. looks like they are in need of a bumper crowd tomorrow to settle some bills
20
tomorrow can't come quick enough on 12:26 - Aug 22 with 4494 views
tomorrow can't come quick enough on 12:22 - Aug 22 by seasidedale
Have mixed feeling about this, wanting them to go bust, but it will cost us £75k which could be the difference between us keeping one of our best players and losing them. same if Bolton go
If the Bolton money is the same amount lost as the Bury gate income its a lot to find.
Would it be inevitable a player would have to be sold.
Not so funny now the implications caused by Bury and Boltons mismanagement...
My all time favourite Dale player Mr Lyndon Symmonds
-1
tomorrow can't come quick enough on 12:31 - Aug 22 with 4467 views
tomorrow can't come quick enough on 08:41 - Aug 22 by James1980
From Beardy Board
I suggest if we are expelled we ask other clubs or former players to wear black armbands. A minute silence before games would be a nice mark of respect and a reminder to other clubs and the EFL that this could and probably will effect some of them in the future.
A minutes applause 👠is now the common practice
tomorrow can't come quick enough on 08:41 - Aug 22 by James1980
From Beardy Board
I suggest if we are expelled we ask other clubs or former players to wear black armbands. A minute silence before games would be a nice mark of respect and a reminder to other clubs and the EFL that this could and probably will effect some of them in the future.
We could wear Bury Black Pudding Armbands & then have a tasty snack at half time rather than our £3.50 pies?
tomorrow can't come quick enough on 12:22 - Aug 22 by seasidedale
Have mixed feeling about this, wanting them to go bust, but it will cost us £75k which could be the difference between us keeping one of our best players and losing them. same if Bolton go
You know what. Sod the money.
This means more than money.
This is now all about moral principles and values.
Will we miss it? Yes we will, but the integrity of the game and EFL is most important here.
They have to be treated as an example, which should symbolise everything we detest.
8
tomorrow can't come quick enough on 13:12 - Aug 22 with 4175 views
tomorrow can't come quick enough on 09:15 - Aug 22 by DaleiLama
"He will also be a marked man with potentially alot on his head without being able to fund 24/7 security this is what I am grasping at. He must know he’s fooked if he fooks us over"
That's an incredibly foolish post from them. Although their board is logged it doesn't take much to infiltrate it. If Dale or his property is harmed the poster might have some questions to answer...
0
tomorrow can't come quick enough on 13:14 - Aug 22 with 4155 views
tomorrow can't come quick enough on 22:28 - Aug 21 by batman
I’m certainly no legend In fact I didn’t renew my season ticket LAST year Got fed up with the football being played under Hill So I ‘did one’. Seems by all accounts of the style of play under BBM I may just be back (near) my old seat. Hopefully I’ll be welcomed back by my old muckers In retrospect, what brought me to Spotland was, apart from other things I won’t go in to. Was the camaraderie amongst the fans. That i do miss. The people (hopefully you know who you are); who I sat amongst for many a year brightened my Saturday afternoons. Not least the exchanges of various home made cakes, parkin and Mince pies (mine were the best ) and tales of which of us were unfortunate enough to witness the worst ever players to wear a Dale shirt. I’m originally from Huddersfield and am, probably, to the chagrin of a lot more of the posters a ‘heathan’ in footballing terms by deserting my home town club. Well if that is the case then I’m proud to be one UTD
Originally from Huddersfield. Premonition of Bury's flight.
Hang on a minute, are you Stewart Day? ;)
In all seriousness, come back to Spotland. The football this season has been sublime so far.
2
tomorrow can't come quick enough on 13:17 - Aug 22 with 4124 views
tomorrow can't come quick enough on 13:12 - Aug 22 by Ancoats_Blue
That's an incredibly foolish post from them. Although their board is logged it doesn't take much to infiltrate it. If Dale or his property is harmed the poster might have some questions to answer...
Hey someone posted a rough history of Burys financial issues over the last 18 years or so on here a couple weeks back but I for the life of me can't find it. Is there any chance anyone can point me in the right direction.
0
tomorrow can't come quick enough on 14:11 - Aug 22 with 3832 views
tomorrow can't come quick enough on 13:52 - Aug 22 by Tyskie
Hey someone posted a rough history of Burys financial issues over the last 18 years or so on here a couple weeks back but I for the life of me can't find it. Is there any chance anyone can point me in the right direction.
It will almost certainly be in this thread somewhere ……. only a couple of hundred pages to trawl through. Meanwhile, here's "their" version. It's been edited and posted on a forum which requires login access since. It's in the thread My take on the Bury FC story in the last 7 years.
The Bury Fc story - how we are less than a week from potentially being expelled from the Football League
Short story We got taken over 7 years ago by a man who had access to funds at ridiculous interest rates with loans and schemes arguably dubious in nature who funded 5 seasons of ‘ spend spend spend ‘ , then when he ran out of avenues for funding sold the club in December 2018 for £1 to a bloke who doesn’t like football and whose business career is littered with him taking over struggling financially and him then shutting them down . He stopped paying wages at Bury after February 2019 and has been unable to satisfy the EFL that he has the funds to complete the season and pay back debts reduced by a CVA ( company voluntary arrangement ) - we have not played a game this season and are 3 days off a 14 day notice of expulsion from the league
Longer story The story starts about 7 years ago . We had overspent for a couple of years and found ourselves with a debt of about £1m ( we owned the ground) . Up stepped 33 year old Yorkshire property developer Stewart Day . All we wanted was some stability as we had had a financially turbulent number of years . But Day had other plans - a five year Championship dream
Companies House showed little successful business history for Day but he set about like a kid in a sweet shop . Loads of new players came , we ended the season mid table in league 2 after being bottom at Christmas . But at a cost of £2m ! More players arrived the following close season , financed by loans at 138% per year !!! , plus some borrowing from Days Mederco companies. Promotion that season cost us another £2,5m - ( As did each of the next 3 seasons) The County Court Judgements started but all the time players were being shipped in and shipped out on big wages at an alarming rate ( 54 players were used in just the last 6 games of 16/17 and the first 6 of 17/18 )
£3m was raised by Mederco ( and then lent to Bury ) on a car park scheme promising for each car park place bought for 10k , investors would get a 9% annual return plus a guaranteed buyback of their investment at a premium . Everyone ended up losing all their money as far as I am aware
We sold millions of pounds of youth talent and just invested in and much more on ‘ named players ‘ - eg Beckford , Vaughan. Pennant in Days dream to reach the promised land of the Championship , where teams on average lose £10m a season - some promised land !
17/18 was a disaster . Players were secretly getting paid late and as many were just mercenaries only here for the money , morale dropped like a stone and we finished bottom with the most expensive team in the history of Bury fc
No problem according to Day . Despite the ongoing CCJs he proclaimed at a fans forum in around February 2018 we were in a good place financially - after all 2 months from then he was due a £60m windfall from the sale of one of his business ventures - Hmmm
Pre-Season 18/19 saw us frantically trying to offload the big earners , to be replaced by largely journeymen. They mixed with the best of the old brigade and they flew, playing fantastically attacking football . Day , previously an outgoing hands on chairman ( rumours of him picking players to be signed were common and he even trained himself with the players ) , took a much more back seat approach
Then late in 2018 , out of the blue the club was sold for £1 to Steve Dale . No fans knew it was even for sale . He came with a back story . He had beaten leukaemia and was here to give to the community. To sign a 99 year lease at Carrington ( Man City’s old training ground we were already leasing) , build a hotel on it and use the facilities for disadvantaged kids . He was going to stabilise the finances and leave the football side to Ryan Lowe our manager
Things initially looked good . On the pitch we were flying and £3m of new share capital was put into the club which everyone assumed initially was from Dale. He looked like our saviour
Then it all started to unravel .
Fans searching on Dales business history only found troubled waters . The phrase ‘ asset stripper ‘ was trending on the Bury Fc messageboard
Late March ( despite Dale apparently turning down 2 bids for players of £250k each in January because we didn’t need the money ) saw wages not being paid . The PFA paid part of the players wages , staff were paid in dribs and drabs , weeks late yet stayed loyal to the club
We had a number of high court winding up appearances , initially brought by an ex assistant manager who had been dismissed 12 or more months earlier and hadn’t been paid up .
Stories were emerging of staff shall we say not being treated in the way you would hope to be treated , despite in many cases actually having paid for club supplies out of their own pocket to keep the club going !
Dale claims only £140k of the £3.7m owed to CBF actually made it into Bury Fc bank accounts , and that the serious fraud office were investigating . There are certainly some interesting linked parties on numerous financial transactions involving Bury fc
Despite all the unrest and lack of wages , the players dug in and remarkably earned promotion . The office and back room staff joined in the on pitch celebrations to show solidarity . Dale had few allies at the club . The other Director who joined with Dale departed leaving Dale the only Director , against EFL rules. Dale appointed a recruit of his , an insolvency expert , to be club general manager . He had been brought in as bury fc ladies manager !
Dale has said he would sell the club but then seemingly wasn’t responding to interested parties . Protests were arranged by fans , including one outside Dales house at which Dales son said ‘ why should we sell ? ‘ Dale had complete control of the club and no-one it seemed could stop him doing what he wanted -whatever that was !
Dale set about doing a CVA ( company voluntary arrangement) to cut the clubs debts . The list of creditors was remarkable - football creditors £1m , secured creditors £4m , unsecured creditors £4m including hmrc £1m , loads of player agencies , former staff , rates bills, accountants and solicitors , utility companies galore - it was clear that bills hadn’t been paid for months if not years and suppliers were changed to the next company willing to supply . Remarkably Dale claimed he was owed £3.6m himself , despite putting in very limited money into the club . Apparently this was a debt owed by the club to Day ( the old chairman ) that was transferred to Dale as part of his £1 investment!!
Dale thought that his debt would enable the cva to be passed ( using his votes ) but Days Mederco companies had gone into administration in early 2019 ( owing £54m according to reports ! ) and the Mederco administrators slapped a £7m claim on the club at the CVA meeting ! The meeting was adjourned. When it reconvened a couple of weeks later , remarkably the Mederco debt had been bought by a brand new company ( set up 2 days earlier ) called RCR holdings . Its registered address was a terraced house in Oldham . Rumours still exist that the company is owned by Dales daughters boyfriend , and that they bought the Mederco debt very cheaply as the £7m was very uncertain and the administration believed ‘ a bird in the hand’ etc RCR could now pass the CVA on their own , thwarting HMRC who didn’t want it passing
Dale personally guaranteed the payments in the CVA but nothing has seemingly been paid to date . The insolvency practitioner handling the CVA ( himself the subject of a disciplinary consent order from his industry body in 2018 ) claimed he had seen a line of credit for £6m from Dale which enabled the CVA to be passed . Dale claimed ‘ the old girl ( Bury fc) is safe’
The EFL needed proof from Dale that he could fund the CVA and the coming season. Despite the apparent £6m credit line , he has been unable to do so - despite Dales claims that he has given all the EFL has wanted . The EFL have repeatedly said otherwise and have now suspended , one by one after a deadline given to a Dale for each match to supply proof of funds , our first 5 league games of the season and kicked us out of the League Cup .
We have just 6 players left from last season - the others not surprisingly want to pay for clubs that play players wages !
Dale has recently gone on a media roadshow to put his side of the story to the press, blaming the EFL , Day and every man and his dog , See the linked talksport recording https://mobile.twitter.com/uglygame/status/1162336018495918080?s=08 for a remarkable interview where one of the 6 remaining players Stephen Dawson was on discrediting Dales claims
The fans just want to know why an ill man with no football interest who apparently had never heard of Bury fc a year or so ago would take over a football club for a £1 if it wasn’t for personal gain . One suggestion is that Dale has effectively been employed by Dale to wind the club up and so stop any investigations into the financial transactions undertaken at the club during Days chairmanship
Dale has said he wants £3m for the hassle he has had since willingly paying his £1 for the club . He says his leukaemia has returned and he is very ill but has still been doing 16 hour days to save the club .
All Bury fc fans are well aware the situation we find ourselves in has been brought about by the ‘ custodians’ of the club , but please spare a thought for the fans who have asked for none of this but who seem powerless to stop whatever Dale wants to do with the club .
The football world is broken when players earn millions a year , and Directors can buy clubs seemingly without having to pass the EFL fit and proper persons test apparently simply by not telling them of the intention to buy the club and then subsequently refusing to submit requested information
I would however love to know how Day managed to satisfy the EFL 14 months or so ago that Bury was a financially viable business and able to meet the same demands that Dale is now unable to .
Only yesterday news broke that Dale turned down an offer to buy the club as he wanted his 25 % return on the £3.6m he claimed he was owed in the cva and the bidders gave refused to pay it . This is despite 1) Dale having personally guaranteed in the cva to make all payments under it and 2) having waived his write to a dividend on his £3.6m as part of the cva and 3) the cva insolvency lead removing the £3.6m from the voting on the cva as it appeared to be also counted in the Mederco £7m
Please please please Steve Dale just sell the club and let us fans watch league football at Gigg Lane again
tomorrow can't come quick enough on 15:14 - Aug 22 by DaleiLama
It will almost certainly be in this thread somewhere ……. only a couple of hundred pages to trawl through. Meanwhile, here's "their" version. It's been edited and posted on a forum which requires login access since. It's in the thread My take on the Bury FC story in the last 7 years.
The Bury Fc story - how we are less than a week from potentially being expelled from the Football League
Short story We got taken over 7 years ago by a man who had access to funds at ridiculous interest rates with loans and schemes arguably dubious in nature who funded 5 seasons of ‘ spend spend spend ‘ , then when he ran out of avenues for funding sold the club in December 2018 for £1 to a bloke who doesn’t like football and whose business career is littered with him taking over struggling financially and him then shutting them down . He stopped paying wages at Bury after February 2019 and has been unable to satisfy the EFL that he has the funds to complete the season and pay back debts reduced by a CVA ( company voluntary arrangement ) - we have not played a game this season and are 3 days off a 14 day notice of expulsion from the league
Longer story The story starts about 7 years ago . We had overspent for a couple of years and found ourselves with a debt of about £1m ( we owned the ground) . Up stepped 33 year old Yorkshire property developer Stewart Day . All we wanted was some stability as we had had a financially turbulent number of years . But Day had other plans - a five year Championship dream
Companies House showed little successful business history for Day but he set about like a kid in a sweet shop . Loads of new players came , we ended the season mid table in league 2 after being bottom at Christmas . But at a cost of £2m ! More players arrived the following close season , financed by loans at 138% per year !!! , plus some borrowing from Days Mederco companies. Promotion that season cost us another £2,5m - ( As did each of the next 3 seasons) The County Court Judgements started but all the time players were being shipped in and shipped out on big wages at an alarming rate ( 54 players were used in just the last 6 games of 16/17 and the first 6 of 17/18 )
£3m was raised by Mederco ( and then lent to Bury ) on a car park scheme promising for each car park place bought for 10k , investors would get a 9% annual return plus a guaranteed buyback of their investment at a premium . Everyone ended up losing all their money as far as I am aware
We sold millions of pounds of youth talent and just invested in and much more on ‘ named players ‘ - eg Beckford , Vaughan. Pennant in Days dream to reach the promised land of the Championship , where teams on average lose £10m a season - some promised land !
17/18 was a disaster . Players were secretly getting paid late and as many were just mercenaries only here for the money , morale dropped like a stone and we finished bottom with the most expensive team in the history of Bury fc
No problem according to Day . Despite the ongoing CCJs he proclaimed at a fans forum in around February 2018 we were in a good place financially - after all 2 months from then he was due a £60m windfall from the sale of one of his business ventures - Hmmm
Pre-Season 18/19 saw us frantically trying to offload the big earners , to be replaced by largely journeymen. They mixed with the best of the old brigade and they flew, playing fantastically attacking football . Day , previously an outgoing hands on chairman ( rumours of him picking players to be signed were common and he even trained himself with the players ) , took a much more back seat approach
Then late in 2018 , out of the blue the club was sold for £1 to Steve Dale . No fans knew it was even for sale . He came with a back story . He had beaten leukaemia and was here to give to the community. To sign a 99 year lease at Carrington ( Man City’s old training ground we were already leasing) , build a hotel on it and use the facilities for disadvantaged kids . He was going to stabilise the finances and leave the football side to Ryan Lowe our manager
Things initially looked good . On the pitch we were flying and £3m of new share capital was put into the club which everyone assumed initially was from Dale. He looked like our saviour
Then it all started to unravel .
Fans searching on Dales business history only found troubled waters . The phrase ‘ asset stripper ‘ was trending on the Bury Fc messageboard
Late March ( despite Dale apparently turning down 2 bids for players of £250k each in January because we didn’t need the money ) saw wages not being paid . The PFA paid part of the players wages , staff were paid in dribs and drabs , weeks late yet stayed loyal to the club
We had a number of high court winding up appearances , initially brought by an ex assistant manager who had been dismissed 12 or more months earlier and hadn’t been paid up .
Stories were emerging of staff shall we say not being treated in the way you would hope to be treated , despite in many cases actually having paid for club supplies out of their own pocket to keep the club going !
Dale claims only £140k of the £3.7m owed to CBF actually made it into Bury Fc bank accounts , and that the serious fraud office were investigating . There are certainly some interesting linked parties on numerous financial transactions involving Bury fc
Despite all the unrest and lack of wages , the players dug in and remarkably earned promotion . The office and back room staff joined in the on pitch celebrations to show solidarity . Dale had few allies at the club . The other Director who joined with Dale departed leaving Dale the only Director , against EFL rules. Dale appointed a recruit of his , an insolvency expert , to be club general manager . He had been brought in as bury fc ladies manager !
Dale has said he would sell the club but then seemingly wasn’t responding to interested parties . Protests were arranged by fans , including one outside Dales house at which Dales son said ‘ why should we sell ? ‘ Dale had complete control of the club and no-one it seemed could stop him doing what he wanted -whatever that was !
Dale set about doing a CVA ( company voluntary arrangement) to cut the clubs debts . The list of creditors was remarkable - football creditors £1m , secured creditors £4m , unsecured creditors £4m including hmrc £1m , loads of player agencies , former staff , rates bills, accountants and solicitors , utility companies galore - it was clear that bills hadn’t been paid for months if not years and suppliers were changed to the next company willing to supply . Remarkably Dale claimed he was owed £3.6m himself , despite putting in very limited money into the club . Apparently this was a debt owed by the club to Day ( the old chairman ) that was transferred to Dale as part of his £1 investment!!
Dale thought that his debt would enable the cva to be passed ( using his votes ) but Days Mederco companies had gone into administration in early 2019 ( owing £54m according to reports ! ) and the Mederco administrators slapped a £7m claim on the club at the CVA meeting ! The meeting was adjourned. When it reconvened a couple of weeks later , remarkably the Mederco debt had been bought by a brand new company ( set up 2 days earlier ) called RCR holdings . Its registered address was a terraced house in Oldham . Rumours still exist that the company is owned by Dales daughters boyfriend , and that they bought the Mederco debt very cheaply as the £7m was very uncertain and the administration believed ‘ a bird in the hand’ etc RCR could now pass the CVA on their own , thwarting HMRC who didn’t want it passing
Dale personally guaranteed the payments in the CVA but nothing has seemingly been paid to date . The insolvency practitioner handling the CVA ( himself the subject of a disciplinary consent order from his industry body in 2018 ) claimed he had seen a line of credit for £6m from Dale which enabled the CVA to be passed . Dale claimed ‘ the old girl ( Bury fc) is safe’
The EFL needed proof from Dale that he could fund the CVA and the coming season. Despite the apparent £6m credit line , he has been unable to do so - despite Dales claims that he has given all the EFL has wanted . The EFL have repeatedly said otherwise and have now suspended , one by one after a deadline given to a Dale for each match to supply proof of funds , our first 5 league games of the season and kicked us out of the League Cup .
We have just 6 players left from last season - the others not surprisingly want to pay for clubs that play players wages !
Dale has recently gone on a media roadshow to put his side of the story to the press, blaming the EFL , Day and every man and his dog , See the linked talksport recording https://mobile.twitter.com/uglygame/status/1162336018495918080?s=08 for a remarkable interview where one of the 6 remaining players Stephen Dawson was on discrediting Dales claims
The fans just want to know why an ill man with no football interest who apparently had never heard of Bury fc a year or so ago would take over a football club for a £1 if it wasn’t for personal gain . One suggestion is that Dale has effectively been employed by Dale to wind the club up and so stop any investigations into the financial transactions undertaken at the club during Days chairmanship
Dale has said he wants £3m for the hassle he has had since willingly paying his £1 for the club . He says his leukaemia has returned and he is very ill but has still been doing 16 hour days to save the club .
All Bury fc fans are well aware the situation we find ourselves in has been brought about by the ‘ custodians’ of the club , but please spare a thought for the fans who have asked for none of this but who seem powerless to stop whatever Dale wants to do with the club .
The football world is broken when players earn millions a year , and Directors can buy clubs seemingly without having to pass the EFL fit and proper persons test apparently simply by not telling them of the intention to buy the club and then subsequently refusing to submit requested information
I would however love to know how Day managed to satisfy the EFL 14 months or so ago that Bury was a financially viable business and able to meet the same demands that Dale is now unable to .
Only yesterday news broke that Dale turned down an offer to buy the club as he wanted his 25 % return on the £3.6m he claimed he was owed in the cva and the bidders gave refused to pay it . This is despite 1) Dale having personally guaranteed in the cva to make all payments under it and 2) having waived his write to a dividend on his £3.6m as part of the cva and 3) the cva insolvency lead removing the £3.6m from the voting on the cva as it appeared to be also counted in the Mederco £7m
Please please please Steve Dale just sell the club and let us fans watch league football at Gigg Lane again
If, as the Times says today, the Mederco debt is also a debt due to Dale, as an associate of his has bought it, he is actually ‘owed’ about £11 million. What a shark the man is
tomorrow can't come quick enough on 15:14 - Aug 22 by DaleiLama
It will almost certainly be in this thread somewhere ……. only a couple of hundred pages to trawl through. Meanwhile, here's "their" version. It's been edited and posted on a forum which requires login access since. It's in the thread My take on the Bury FC story in the last 7 years.
The Bury Fc story - how we are less than a week from potentially being expelled from the Football League
Short story We got taken over 7 years ago by a man who had access to funds at ridiculous interest rates with loans and schemes arguably dubious in nature who funded 5 seasons of ‘ spend spend spend ‘ , then when he ran out of avenues for funding sold the club in December 2018 for £1 to a bloke who doesn’t like football and whose business career is littered with him taking over struggling financially and him then shutting them down . He stopped paying wages at Bury after February 2019 and has been unable to satisfy the EFL that he has the funds to complete the season and pay back debts reduced by a CVA ( company voluntary arrangement ) - we have not played a game this season and are 3 days off a 14 day notice of expulsion from the league
Longer story The story starts about 7 years ago . We had overspent for a couple of years and found ourselves with a debt of about £1m ( we owned the ground) . Up stepped 33 year old Yorkshire property developer Stewart Day . All we wanted was some stability as we had had a financially turbulent number of years . But Day had other plans - a five year Championship dream
Companies House showed little successful business history for Day but he set about like a kid in a sweet shop . Loads of new players came , we ended the season mid table in league 2 after being bottom at Christmas . But at a cost of £2m ! More players arrived the following close season , financed by loans at 138% per year !!! , plus some borrowing from Days Mederco companies. Promotion that season cost us another £2,5m - ( As did each of the next 3 seasons) The County Court Judgements started but all the time players were being shipped in and shipped out on big wages at an alarming rate ( 54 players were used in just the last 6 games of 16/17 and the first 6 of 17/18 )
£3m was raised by Mederco ( and then lent to Bury ) on a car park scheme promising for each car park place bought for 10k , investors would get a 9% annual return plus a guaranteed buyback of their investment at a premium . Everyone ended up losing all their money as far as I am aware
We sold millions of pounds of youth talent and just invested in and much more on ‘ named players ‘ - eg Beckford , Vaughan. Pennant in Days dream to reach the promised land of the Championship , where teams on average lose £10m a season - some promised land !
17/18 was a disaster . Players were secretly getting paid late and as many were just mercenaries only here for the money , morale dropped like a stone and we finished bottom with the most expensive team in the history of Bury fc
No problem according to Day . Despite the ongoing CCJs he proclaimed at a fans forum in around February 2018 we were in a good place financially - after all 2 months from then he was due a £60m windfall from the sale of one of his business ventures - Hmmm
Pre-Season 18/19 saw us frantically trying to offload the big earners , to be replaced by largely journeymen. They mixed with the best of the old brigade and they flew, playing fantastically attacking football . Day , previously an outgoing hands on chairman ( rumours of him picking players to be signed were common and he even trained himself with the players ) , took a much more back seat approach
Then late in 2018 , out of the blue the club was sold for £1 to Steve Dale . No fans knew it was even for sale . He came with a back story . He had beaten leukaemia and was here to give to the community. To sign a 99 year lease at Carrington ( Man City’s old training ground we were already leasing) , build a hotel on it and use the facilities for disadvantaged kids . He was going to stabilise the finances and leave the football side to Ryan Lowe our manager
Things initially looked good . On the pitch we were flying and £3m of new share capital was put into the club which everyone assumed initially was from Dale. He looked like our saviour
Then it all started to unravel .
Fans searching on Dales business history only found troubled waters . The phrase ‘ asset stripper ‘ was trending on the Bury Fc messageboard
Late March ( despite Dale apparently turning down 2 bids for players of £250k each in January because we didn’t need the money ) saw wages not being paid . The PFA paid part of the players wages , staff were paid in dribs and drabs , weeks late yet stayed loyal to the club
We had a number of high court winding up appearances , initially brought by an ex assistant manager who had been dismissed 12 or more months earlier and hadn’t been paid up .
Stories were emerging of staff shall we say not being treated in the way you would hope to be treated , despite in many cases actually having paid for club supplies out of their own pocket to keep the club going !
Dale claims only £140k of the £3.7m owed to CBF actually made it into Bury Fc bank accounts , and that the serious fraud office were investigating . There are certainly some interesting linked parties on numerous financial transactions involving Bury fc
Despite all the unrest and lack of wages , the players dug in and remarkably earned promotion . The office and back room staff joined in the on pitch celebrations to show solidarity . Dale had few allies at the club . The other Director who joined with Dale departed leaving Dale the only Director , against EFL rules. Dale appointed a recruit of his , an insolvency expert , to be club general manager . He had been brought in as bury fc ladies manager !
Dale has said he would sell the club but then seemingly wasn’t responding to interested parties . Protests were arranged by fans , including one outside Dales house at which Dales son said ‘ why should we sell ? ‘ Dale had complete control of the club and no-one it seemed could stop him doing what he wanted -whatever that was !
Dale set about doing a CVA ( company voluntary arrangement) to cut the clubs debts . The list of creditors was remarkable - football creditors £1m , secured creditors £4m , unsecured creditors £4m including hmrc £1m , loads of player agencies , former staff , rates bills, accountants and solicitors , utility companies galore - it was clear that bills hadn’t been paid for months if not years and suppliers were changed to the next company willing to supply . Remarkably Dale claimed he was owed £3.6m himself , despite putting in very limited money into the club . Apparently this was a debt owed by the club to Day ( the old chairman ) that was transferred to Dale as part of his £1 investment!!
Dale thought that his debt would enable the cva to be passed ( using his votes ) but Days Mederco companies had gone into administration in early 2019 ( owing £54m according to reports ! ) and the Mederco administrators slapped a £7m claim on the club at the CVA meeting ! The meeting was adjourned. When it reconvened a couple of weeks later , remarkably the Mederco debt had been bought by a brand new company ( set up 2 days earlier ) called RCR holdings . Its registered address was a terraced house in Oldham . Rumours still exist that the company is owned by Dales daughters boyfriend , and that they bought the Mederco debt very cheaply as the £7m was very uncertain and the administration believed ‘ a bird in the hand’ etc RCR could now pass the CVA on their own , thwarting HMRC who didn’t want it passing
Dale personally guaranteed the payments in the CVA but nothing has seemingly been paid to date . The insolvency practitioner handling the CVA ( himself the subject of a disciplinary consent order from his industry body in 2018 ) claimed he had seen a line of credit for £6m from Dale which enabled the CVA to be passed . Dale claimed ‘ the old girl ( Bury fc) is safe’
The EFL needed proof from Dale that he could fund the CVA and the coming season. Despite the apparent £6m credit line , he has been unable to do so - despite Dales claims that he has given all the EFL has wanted . The EFL have repeatedly said otherwise and have now suspended , one by one after a deadline given to a Dale for each match to supply proof of funds , our first 5 league games of the season and kicked us out of the League Cup .
We have just 6 players left from last season - the others not surprisingly want to pay for clubs that play players wages !
Dale has recently gone on a media roadshow to put his side of the story to the press, blaming the EFL , Day and every man and his dog , See the linked talksport recording https://mobile.twitter.com/uglygame/status/1162336018495918080?s=08 for a remarkable interview where one of the 6 remaining players Stephen Dawson was on discrediting Dales claims
The fans just want to know why an ill man with no football interest who apparently had never heard of Bury fc a year or so ago would take over a football club for a £1 if it wasn’t for personal gain . One suggestion is that Dale has effectively been employed by Dale to wind the club up and so stop any investigations into the financial transactions undertaken at the club during Days chairmanship
Dale has said he wants £3m for the hassle he has had since willingly paying his £1 for the club . He says his leukaemia has returned and he is very ill but has still been doing 16 hour days to save the club .
All Bury fc fans are well aware the situation we find ourselves in has been brought about by the ‘ custodians’ of the club , but please spare a thought for the fans who have asked for none of this but who seem powerless to stop whatever Dale wants to do with the club .
The football world is broken when players earn millions a year , and Directors can buy clubs seemingly without having to pass the EFL fit and proper persons test apparently simply by not telling them of the intention to buy the club and then subsequently refusing to submit requested information
I would however love to know how Day managed to satisfy the EFL 14 months or so ago that Bury was a financially viable business and able to meet the same demands that Dale is now unable to .
Only yesterday news broke that Dale turned down an offer to buy the club as he wanted his 25 % return on the £3.6m he claimed he was owed in the cva and the bidders gave refused to pay it . This is despite 1) Dale having personally guaranteed in the cva to make all payments under it and 2) having waived his write to a dividend on his £3.6m as part of the cva and 3) the cva insolvency lead removing the £3.6m from the voting on the cva as it appeared to be also counted in the Mederco £7m
Please please please Steve Dale just sell the club and let us fans watch league football at Gigg Lane again
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