The Bury FC story - why we may be expelled from the football league on Friday

[buryboy]

Hi there
As you can probably guess from my username I am a Bury FC fan . Some may remember my post to the friendly re Rangers last pre season
Well here we are just over a year later in the unprecedented position of potentially being kicked out of the football league inside 72 hours
There has been relatively little until very recent days in the national press who largely care only about the Premier League

So I have done my own story below as to how we have got to where we are now , both in short version and in a more detailed version ( but still missing out lots of interesting ( imho) stuff

Please feel free to share on your own football clubs message boards as I don’t think that many fans know enough as to what has gone on . It could have happened to any club , unfortunately it was Bury

[buryboy]

The Bury Fc story - how we are less than a week from potentially being expelled from the Football League

Short story
We were taken over 6 years ago by a man who had access to funds at ridiculous interest rates with loans and schemes very 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 companies 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 being expelled from the football league

Longer story


The story starts about 6 years ago . We had overspent for a couple of years and found ourselves with net liabilities of about £400k ( we owned the ground) - less than a weeks salary now for Sanchez in comparison . 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 about £1.6m ! More players arrived the following close season , financed by loans at 138% per year ! , plus some borrowing from Day’s Mederco companies. Promotion that season cost us another £2.8m ( as ( roughly) did the next two seasons struggling in league 1)

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 Day’s dream to reach the promised land of the Championship , where teams on average lose £10m a season - some promised land !

Day’s whole business model was built on sand and doomed to failure from the start

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 we were in a great 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-one 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

Dale’s initial interview on buying the club is here buryfc/news/2018/d...matt-mccarthy/

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 Dale’s 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 my 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 stayed away from the club and started posting statements decrying a section of the staff and the fans . A classic example below buryfc/news/2019/m...-the-chairman/ How it can be a disgrace to set up food banks for unpaid staff is beyond me


Dale was blaming Day and his funding methods - they certainly have come under scrutiny - see the article google/amp/s/amp.t...loans-car-park
claiming 40% finders fees on the borrowings with Capital Bridge Finance and discussing the car park scheme

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 during the Day era

Edited to add - much of Day’s borrowing on his day job at his property companies was through Lendy , a peer to peer lending company who themselves went int administration in May 2019, partly on the back of the £27m owed by the Mederco companies . High risk lending that presumably filtered through partly funding Bury’s excessive spending under Day’s regime . Some fans have suggested the high spending was merely to cover up for more dubious transactions at the club - even in the early Day years it was all very complex - see this early statement buryfc/news/2014/n...ry-re-finance/ End of edit

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 Dale’s house at which Dale’s 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 is/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 Day’s 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 is 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’

Dales treatment of staff and fans remained unpalatable - listen below for how he got his nickname of the grizzly bear . ( in the voice video by @tombfc)
mobile.twitter/SaltaireB...311997953?s=20

Fans have separately made accusations of threats said to them by Dale.

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 ( or maybe unwilling) 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 . Unprecedented action from the EFL,

We have just 6 players left from last season - the others not surprisingly want to play for clubs that pay 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 mobile.twitter/uglygame/...495918080?s=08
for a remarkable interview where one of the 6 remaining players Stephen Dawson was on discrediting Dale’s 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 Day to wind the club up and so stop any investigations into the financial transactions undertaken at the club during Day’s chairmanship . Dale’s version of events from when he took over - to give back to the community - certainly doesn’t appear to have happened yet .

The remaining staff have put an astonishing plea on the club website imploring Dale to sell the club
buryfc/news/2019/a...bury-fc-staff/

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 .

A great read of the situation was in the Daily Mail google/amp/s/d...ury-brink.html

The whole situation is hitting fans hard - some stories here
mobile.twitter/whiteblue...833275392?s=08
And here
bbc/news/newsbeat-49372359

Fans even went into the ground last Saturday and laid red roses at the ground

If you have got this far , you may wish to support the CHANGE petition here change/p/steve-dale-..._bandit_var=v0, or even donate on one of the just giving pages ( eg this one set up by a Sheffield Wednesday fan ) justgiving/crowdfunding/saveburyfc

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 have refused to pay it . This is despite 1) Dale having personally guaranteed in the cva to make all payments under it , 2) having waived his right 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 - that community you talked about in your first interview is broken at the thought of the club in its current guise folding

[Do5-BaG]

Probably posted this in the wrong forum to be honest, better to have put it in the Sports section.

But, as a Newcastle fan, I have total sympathy for you guys!

[disneypars]

Bit of a sad story hope it is resolved soon to the benefit of the supporters.

[Guest]

Very sad story . Really hope something can be done to stop this happening

[ERICSMUM]

Wow ! Not much 'due diligence' done by anyone at any time. What about accountants and auditors - didn't they pick up on this ?

[Omega1]

As a Shakers supporter for over 50 years, it is indeed a sorry state of affairs.

[Gally1968]

The EFL are really not fit for purpose in my view, whilst not being an ardent fan of my local club (Blackpool) the supporters went years appealing to the authorities with regards to how the club was being run. In turn the EFL pretty much did nothing, just watched the owners strip the club of pretty much every penny it had.

I hope Bury can see this out and survive but I genuinely believe they may well be the first in a long line of smaller clubs who end up folding over the next few years unless more of the EPL riches start to filter further down the leagues.

Good luck and fingers crossed that things change sooner rather than later.

[Stew_the_red]

Bury Boy, with living in the north west i have kept a keen eye on the goings on here and at Bolton ( my daughter played for them for a while) its a heart breaking story for so many people and its something that could easily be rectified if the owner (from what i can make out) was reasonable.

I dont take the comment about the media being only interested in the Premier League but thats easy for me to say as an LFC season ticket holder, i do however think that the likes of Liverpool, Everton, Manchester United & City all have a duty to the game to help where possible, i dont think that this is all monetary but a cash injection would help some of the staff at the very least, i also think that the EFL have a massive role to play in this, they firstly need to offer all the help they can and stop with the threat of kicking Bury and Bolton out the leagues and also look at their own actions, these owners should have been vetted!

i feel your pain, but theres always hope no matter how dim that light at the end of the tunnel seems, Liverpool were hours away from going bust a few years ago!

i truly hope things improve quickly

[sidsmum]

Just watched a Twitter clip of fan interviews, it is awful... all that emotion and history... so sad 😞