Giggler are you OK? Are you OK Giggler?

[Giggler]

Bury FC SS, some of whose directors were present when fireworks were let off on the Gigg Lane pitch when the No vote was confirmed, are now seeking a second vote with a recommendation for a yes vote.

https://www.buryfcss.co.uk/bfcss-statement-20-12-22/

Will it ever end?

[TonTon]

Is this good?

[Giggler]

It doesn’t feel it to me. They had their chance but didn’t take it due to a campaign of disinformation. Plus, a lot on that side have been appalling to those on the AFC side as just fans, never mind the board. My immediate feeling is they made their bed and they should lie in it.

[Jobi1]

Is it actually permissable under articles of a association etc. to just keep running a vote until the desired outcome is achieved? Would have thought they'd need to claim new information had come to light or something, which isn't mentioned in that statement.


And if it is a yes vote, would those in the (seeming) minority chuck the toys out and not come along to support the newly merged entity, or is it more likely they'd stick around just to be neggy to everyone else? All speculation I guess at this point.

[Giggler]

Is it actually permissable under articles of a association etc. to just keep running a vote until the desired outcome is achieved? Would have thought they'd need to claim new information had come to light or something, which isn't mentioned in that statement.


And if it is a yes vote, would those in the (seeming) minority chuck the toys out and not come along to support the newly merged entity, or is it more likely they'd stick around just to be neggy to everyone else? All speculation I guess at this point.

Probably the latter. There are already pubs in Bury I wouldn't feel comfortable going into on my own and I don't see that situation changing for a good while yet. One of them would probably be the Wetherspoons, as Kieran Maguire points out in today's Price of Football podcast (go to about 7m 45s and listen from there - https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcas...=1000590935912

[Sean of the Shed]

Would it be safe to say that having been charged with the task of putting a club together, the BFCSS directors have come to the realisation that their collective skills would see them struggling to put a flat pack IKEA table together and have therefore realised the only way to get a club playing at Gigg Lane is to come crawling back to AFC and hope they will give them another chance?

[Giggler]

Their supporters have been crowing on social media that starting a club would be easy, but one thing you would need to at least keep the ground going is money, and they don't seem to have a lot of it. I'm not entirely sure they're crawling back either; I think a number of their directors are still wholeheartedly anti-AFC but they're under pressure from all kinds of stakeholders, not least the levelling up department. IF there was a merger then I think you'd see these people walk away from the new club altogether. Another Facebook group has been created along the lines of 'No to merger 2' with the same sentiment as Homer Simpson chasing after the pig fired from the cannon "It's just a little slimy, it's still good... it's still good!") but interest is waning.

[Satchmo Distel]

Would the majority of AFC members still want the merger?

[Giggler]

Really not sure about the majority at the moment. The vocals on social media are saying that they had the chance but didn’t take it earlier this year, then showed their pride in not taking it and so want nothing to do with them.

[NHH]

Is the split something that maps onto something else and is a kind of new set of clothes for an older and more important division, or has it pulled in people to both sides with no seeming rhyme or reason? From a distance, it seems to map onto the division in former labour heartland seats between metropolitan types who'd see Bury as part and parcel of Greater Manchester and more older and traditionally orientated people who'd identify very strongly with Bury as an independent political and economic entity, and see themselves as being part of Lancashire. But I'm probably projecting!

[Giggler]

I think that broadly speaking, those who have been vocally anti-AFC on social media are all politically right of centre with some being very vocally anti-left too. Bury North isn't a traditional Red Wall seat; it was created in 1983 and immediately went blue until 1997 when it went red until 2010. Then blue to 2017, red to 2019, and blue since then.

Getting the current Tory MP onside was vital for the purchase of the ground, hence why Johnson, Gove and Sunak have all been photographed down there. The MP even said before the council elections - for which Starmer launched Labour's campaign in Bury holding an AFC shirt - that if Bury returned a Tory council, the purchase would be a priority. The town didn't, but I presume he still saw it as a vote winner for himself and went to the Levelling Up department. Obviously, the ground isn't being used for elite men's football at the moment and I think the MP is facing some tricky questions which is why vote 2.0 is being publicly pushed-for. Though obviously, screengrabs are emerging of Bury FC SS supporters saying polite talk of a merge is all a front.

More than three years of this shit.