Giggler are you OK? Are you OK Giggler?

[Artificial Hipster]

I'll be interested to hear what Giggler has to say but this seems like great news to me.

https://twitter.com/OfficialBuryAFC/...83675684429827

[Kowalski]

After going through this kind of thing in the last 4 years, albeit it on a smaller scale, I can say with some certainty it's an odd sensation to be; 1) blanked by people that were once your footballing friends 2) accused of deserting your club, and community, in their "hour of need".

It's an even stranger sensation to walk through a crowded street in Medieval Conwy and be subject to a football-based drive by shouting from the occupants of a passing van. I only happened to be on that particular street because I wanted an artisan sausage roll and a cold drink after a long walk from Llandudno, I was told in no uncertain terms that "we" had "no history" and that I was "a non-congratulatory pun" based on the last syllable of our club's name.

It becomes even weirder when the people of our side of the argument have generally committed to a non-judgemental outlook about those that didn't agree with us 4 years ago, but then having that kind of outlook is essential when you bump into people socially through the week.

[Botswana Meat Commission]

I hope I’m wrong but I can’t see it being a harmonious and unified marriage more a marriage of convenience.

[Satchmo Distel]

Will the AFC seasons go into the club's official history records, so the players' stats are properly honoured, or was there perhaps an understanding that would be excluded from the arrangement?

[Sean of the Shed]

And that’s why I’m not celebrating too wildly just yet. A lot of bridges to be rebuilt, if they even can be, but it was the right thing to do.

Will those anti-merger from BFCSS even be getting involved with the new club. Many people will likely know who they are so will they even be welcome?

[Artificial Hipster]

My assumption was that the new club would essentially be AFC in all but name, hence some of the old Forever Bury lot still being against the merger. Fingers crossed it works out for you either way, Giggler.

[HeavyDracula]

And that’s why I’m not celebrating too wildly just yet. A lot of bridges to be rebuilt, if they even can be, but it was the right thing to do.

You’re a better man than I. They sound like AWFUL people.

[Viktor Boskovic]

I hope there isn't some air brushing out of history of the pheonix club and all the hard work the fans put in since 2019. If it was me, I would also probably be a bit conflicted, as AFC are of course fan run, which is always the best way to be in my experience, so hopefully that will continue in the merged club.

[Giggler]

And that’s why I’m not celebrating too wildly just yet. A lot of bridges to be rebuilt, if they even can be, but it was the right thing to do.

[Discordant Resonance]

https://twitter.com/buryfcofficial/status/1654564760564772865?t=TfVBwjIs7I4Wa1WvNsaSuQ&s=19

Great news as expected. A merged Bury FC will continue in the North West counties league at Gigg Lane next season.

Though the tweet is rather graceless, by not even acknowledging the existence of AFC, and the effort made by same to keep football in Bury alive.

[Artificial Hipster]

Fantastic news.

[Foot of Astaire's]

https://twitter.com/buryfcofficial/status/1654564760564772865?t=TfVBwjIs7I4Wa1WvNsaSuQ&s=19

Great news as expected. A merged Bury FC will continue in the North West counties league at Gigg Lane next season.

[Foot of Astaire's]

Would new new Bury take new Bury’s place in the pyramid they’d just take old Bury’s ground and history? That’s how I’ve read things, anyway.

As I see it, that's the proposal. Quite sad in a way, that AFC's achievements will be consigned to history but it's for the greater good and all being well a new Bury FC will be at Gigg next season playing in the North West counties.

[Botswana Meat Commission]

Would new new Bury take new Bury’s place in the pyramid they’d just take old Bury’s ground and history? That’s how I’ve read things, anyway.

[Foot of Astaire's]

Is our resident Shaker still around? The results of the latest merger ballot are due out soon and I've noticed a definite shift on social media, with the gobby anti AFC lot seemingly much fewer and more marginalised than last time around.

Hopefully the right result this time and it'll be great to see them playing at Gigg again. It'd be a fitting legacy to the fantastic work the AFC members did in getting a team up and running during their darkest days.

[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.

[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]

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.

[Satchmo Distel]

Would the majority of AFC members still want the merger?

[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.

[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]

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

[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]

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.

[DCI Harry Batt]

Is this good?