Grounds for improvement?

As Christmas time is a time for reflection (and as this season has been so toe-curlingly awful so far) I often find myself drifting off, thinking back to days gone by. New books delivered by Santa meant a bit of re-organisation of the shelving, during this task I was waylaid by my elderly copy of Simon Inglis's Football Grounds of Britain (my edition dated 1996) and as I flicked through more and more I was transported back by the excellent descriptions of grounds and the pictures of the lost grounds I visited in my formative years of supporting the Shakers.

Many games jumped out of the pictures, Rotherham's Millmoor ground, scene of Baichung Bhutia's fine goal - maybe his best moment in a Bury shirt - flashed by, I regressed further to David Lee's 1990(?) team when I was lucky to escape on the train with my life as some local hoolie wannabees spotted me as they got off a couple of stops before my return to college. Millmoor was a tidy ground with a narrow alley at the back of the away end by a scrap yard. It had a big social club (the Tivoli) on the front that sold stones or wards bitter and was probably the warmest place on the ground. Millmoor was a lucky ground in recent times, I don't remember losing too many there and it was generally a good trip.

Wigan's Springfield Park fell open before me, an unlovable bowl with a grassy away end, and a small stand plonked on the terracing down one side. I recall laying out on my flag sunbathing during one end of season game, and slithering down it celebrating goals during wet Tuesday nights in the middle of winter. It was rarely a pleasure to visit Springfield Park with its big empty wide open spaces and big fence, strangely when they moved to the JJB Stadium it remained difficult but I do happily recall a Steve Redmond header salvaging a Boxing Day point a few years ago.

Simon Inglis describes Scunthorpe and Walsall as 'tin shacks' as he registers his dismay at the modernisation of grounds 'off the shelf'. The Walsall chapter had me waxing nostalgic as I returned to Fellows Park, one of my first away visits on the coach. Fellows Park is a supermarket now but was surrounded by decent pubs and had a good chippy and was a club in the heart of its community, unlike its replacement down by the motorway which isn't exactly supporting local business, and like many pubs and shops left behind those excellent services struggled once the clubs moved away.

I enjoyed skimming through Oxford's manor ground chapter, calling in at David Adekola's hat trick day at Scarborough (which deserves a blog entry all of it's own) and recalling visits to Leeds Road Huddersfield, Northampton's county ground, Roker Park and Stoke's Victoria ground where Reginald T Roofer once scored twice to stun the locals.

Of course I paused to re read the most read entry of all. Inglis perceptively describes Gigg Lane as 'the corner shop we all desperately want someone else to fraternise to ensure its survival'. This certainly continues and the ground he presents to his readers is more or less still the Gigg we know and love. I got to thinking about how supporters of other teams view Gigg? Would they mourn it's passing if the club upped sticks to a new fancy purpose built multi use community stadium?

I suppose the away games and grounds I remember are the ones where the best things happened for the Shakers, so by the same thinking the games I most want to forget at Gigg are where similar things happened for the opposition. I can think of (memorably) Swansea and Sunderland getting promoted at Gigg, also Walsall and their celebrating fans on the social club roof. Plymouth fans who were there probably recall fondly the 5-0 victory that cost Mike Walsh his job in September 1995 (I recall it as WWYATS? sponsored the game) but would they feel sad at the passing of our ground? I somehow doubt it.

The thing that struck me most during my nostalgic skim through Inglis's book was the ariel shots. Grounds are moving away from their communities, and heartlands. Those shots provide evidence of the evolution of the stadia and how their localities fit in around them (look at a picture of Goodison park if you don't believe me). Granted the new grounds are better appointed, more comfortable and fitted with all the fancy kit required to cover the game in the 21st century.

But are they an improvement? Not always in my book.

Do you ever have one of those days?

If you are amongst the 95 souls who follow me on twitter you'll be aware I'm not in good form.

I'm at a fairly low ebb with football, like many Shakers you could say I'm reeling from a combination of blows that would make, if not Sugar Ray Leonard but maybe Darren Bullock, very proud indeed.

It all started on Saturday, which was grim. Attendance wise it was grim, performance wise it was grim, Mum was bleating about her favourite wind up Andy Bishop, which darkened my mood and by the end of the game it was freezing and raining which meant it was a grim ride back over the pennines.
I sulked and planned a blog post which I quickly abandoned as too miserable and unnecessarily negative. I put it down to one of those days.

Sunday by mid afternoon was suddenly another one of those days. I felt like I'd stepped back in time 10 years. Transfer embargoes, financial peril, bucket collections and clamour for information screamed from the places where virtual shakers hang out. Had the curse of Brian Fenton's holidays had struck again (surely the answer is to confiscate the man's passport?) It's easy to say 'let the board deal with these situations' but when news is leaked out by the local paper, and fans have been so instrumental in the efforts to keep the club going not so long ago it's not surprising there is a panicked reaction. Particularly when it coincides with the quickest turn around in players I can remember.
Martin Dobson's promotion team used just 15 players (thanks James Bentley) yet I reckon KB has already signed more than that in his brief tenure at the top, I had already mused to myself it must be impacting on finances somewhere.
So I shared the information I had with the people who asked it, and went to bed with a heavy heart fearing the worst but hoping for the best from the official announcement as to what exactly was going on.

Monday's announcement allayed the fears somewhat, a quick PFA loan, being paid back in a month to ease the pain caused by called off games was the diagnosis of the embargo. The team set off to Southend mid morning with it's full complement of loanees still intact, and proceeded to get stuck in a huge accident on the M6. Having had 2 days from hell the club must've felt like someone was sticking pins into them.

Tuesday's cup tie and subsequent penalty shoot out loss was horribly depressing listening. The importance of the revenue from the cup overtook everyone, and the pressure was too severe. What made it worse was the juxtaposition of the Bradford v Arsenal shoot out happening virtually simultaneously, with the miraculous giant killing and £1 million pay out. For a brief moment it seemed like the Shakers had got it under control but the lead lasted a subliminal advertisers target time and the prize pot disappeared.

Surely Wednesday would be better?
Being awoken by my radio alarm singing the praise of Bradford's miracle by a lady DJ who doesn't quite have the terminology at her finger tips set me off in a bad mood. From twitter I gauged that several Shakers were having equally poor starts to their days. It wasn't until the FA's announcement of Bradford's reinstatement into the FA Cup that my blood began to boil again, the exact same circumstances had resulted in our explusion from the cup in 2006 yet City were off with a fine. The cynic in me can see that City were feeding at the FA's top table as recently as 1999, and as such still be part of that club. Only yesterday they got everyone talking about football in a positive way causing a huge cup upset. It wouldn't do to spoil the feel good by kicking them out would it?
Local radio tried to make a difference where there wasn't one - Bradford had spotted the problem and alerted the FA, other clubs had waited to be found out. Not true of course, Bury had flagged it up in 2006 as soon as the oversight was discovered but why let the truth hide a story. I hope Bury take legal advice based on what happened with this case, as there is now clear difference in treatment of the same case. It may solve the short term financial issues if the 2006 prize money for reaching round 3 is correctly reallocated (minus the fine of course).

So I remained cross, having had 5 days in a row. Let down by the governing body who had failed to keep to their own precedent, unsure about the financial stability of my beloved club, amazed at the never ceasing bad luck that seems to have enveloped the club like a blanket again and desperate for those players pulling on the shirt to feel it like we do. Maybe just once?

There was I at the Shay.

With the Shakers far, far away in deepest Essex or somewhere similar I took the chance to accept an invitation to take a nostalgic visit to the Shay, home of FC Halifax Town and the source of the name of this esteemed blog and it's paper based predecessor.

I wasn't there at the Shay on the Friday evening that named a Fanzine in May 1985, I was camping with my mates in the 10th Radcliffe Scouts at Giants Seat.I was aware of the importance of the game of course and had smuggled my trusty transistor radio to ensure I knew exactly what was going to be needed when my Dad picked me up to go to Gigg the following day. Frustratingly neither Radio Manchester or Piccadilly Radio told me anything other than 'Bury could gain promotion tomorrow...' and it wasn't until the following morning that I found out that Dobson's boys had been promoted without kicking a ball.

Many things had changed since my last visit to Halifax, the club had gone belly up, and been revived by swapping the FC to the front of the name (a useful trick, worth remembering), the old clubhouse had been wiped out and a fancy stand finally completed. The ground itself has been subtly renamed Shay Stadium, maybe since the New York Mets didn’t need the name anymore Calderdale council put in a cheeky bid and acquired the rights? The Shay hotel has been erased from the local pub scene but the art deco charm of the three pigeons and it’s excellent beers from the Ossett brewery remain firmly in place.

I didn’t visit the Shay until 1989, as a Yorkshire based student in my first year I got all the local grounds in that season. One of my firmest memories is the train backing out of Bradford station, an unexpected sensation. I stood in the chicken shed facing the main stand and took it all in, a familiar yet unfamiliar mix of souls whose lives, like mine were destined to follow their team in a roller coaster life sentence.

On the field at Shay stadium it was a bit scrappy, despite Droylsden’s relatively low position defences were on top. Ex Shakers Gaz Seddon and Jason Jarrett weren’t getting much of a look in, and when Seds finally tucked one in at the far stick he was flagged offside for the umpteenth time in the game. Seeing Seddon again sent me all nostalgic for a time when it wasn’t much fun being a Shaker, similarly Jarrett huffed and puffed and when he was eventually subbed off mid 2^nd half he threw a lovely diva strop and launched his jacket just wide of the dugout and just into the stand.

I didn’t visit the Shay as a Shakers fan until 92/3 season. It was the coldest I have ever been on a football ground. Colder than Ice Station Boundary Park, colder than Carlisle, colder than Boxing day when we cleared the pitch of snow for a game that never happened. Someone had daubed BFC on the tarmac mound that housed the away fans, and similarly painted our initials onto the pitch too. Danny Sonner scored to send the freezing hoards home happy but Halifax struggled all season and fell out of the league on the last day, watched by a huge crowd of ghoulish day trippers and programme collectors (all buying in multiple!!) A few days later, while selling the WWYATS? play off issue prior to the York game, one away fan told me ‘have some respect, the team from the Shay just went down.’ He mustn’t have got a programme.

Suddenly I was raised from my nostalgia, I’d been only 44 people off in the guess the crowd sweepstake amongst my friend’s regulars in the stand. Much tutting was going on and accusing glances came my way, fortunately someone a couple of rows in front was 22 closer. It wouldn’t do to win on your first attempt. Thankfully the game was looking up too. Seddon had been involved in a sublime move for the first goal, and a well taken 2^nd had given Town a cushion when Droylsden were woken from their slumbers with a training ground free kick. With 15 mins to go I was enjoying the game.

Non league football doesn’t suit the Shay, it’s a far better ground than that. The chicken shed stand was closed, but the now seated enclosure was ready and waiting for better times. This couldn’t be said for the away end where I’d last visited for a disastrous JPT game in the mid 2000’s when we had our keeper sent off and conceded a pan full. I was amazed to discover that the end had been condemned, the builders had used cheap materials that had rendered it unsafe, so there it stood with adverts hanging from it’s crush barriers, like a grumpy teacher reminding the class, ’if it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing properly’.

A 3^rd Halifax goal prompted Droylsden to bring on a 3^rd ex Shaker. Joe O’Neill didn’t set any pulses racing during a loan spell at Gigg and he didn’t really on Saturday either. My mate was amazed at the amount of Shakers references I’d been able to get into one game, I was a bit concerned he’d laid it all on for me. The 4^th made it a bit one sided in the end but by that stage I was reminiscing again about visits past. Hopefully it won’t be too long before we can all ask where were you at the Shay again.

A welcome return in our eco system

Well it finally happened, season 2012/13 is up and running.

Just 3 days after the draw for the 1st round of the Cup and 3 managers on from the start of pre season, Bury have broken the seemingly never ending winless run that formed the worst start in living memory and has cut the Gigg Lane core support back to pre-Dobson era levels.
Having said all that the Blackwell era so far has been nicely positive, lots of enthusiasm and a return to siege mentality that the club thrives on in times of (so called) crisis. The influx of loanees has been a mostly improving feature yet on Tuesday it was the returning faces that cheered my evening.

Arriving into the ground at 7.30ish it was clear to see it was going to be a lonely old evening, Brian on the Mic was treating us to his early 90's playlist and it seemed slightly surreal to be singing 'Tony, Tony Tony, Tony Tony Rigby' along to Too Unlimited's original at a relegation 6 pointer in October. However as kick off approached there were some welcome returns. Efe Sodje was back in the team, complete with bandana, tights and gloves and (some of) the boys behnd me were back too.

When we chose our seats in the South Stand in 1997 we had no idea who we would sit near, but faces have become friends, some have come and gone, others now cheer on the lads from the grandstand in the sky sending celestial positive vibes. Others have joined our little posse of H Block protesters and the return of these guys cheered my evening on Tuesday. Always entertaining, these guy's views of the game are well worth a listen and the banter that accompanies it has educated my Mum over the last couple of years immensely, I'll leave it there. I heard Nick Hornby discussing his move from Highbury to the Emirates a few days ago, he said they had carefully moved their 'eco system' of matchday friends lock stock an barrell when they transplanted thier club, I would hope our similar network may stay together should we ever be uprooted.

Anyway, Tuesday evening was a lovely return to normal service. The boys behind discussed the chicken balti pie with an enthusiasm usually reserved for Paul Hollywood and Mary Berry dissecting the results of the technical challenge on GBBO. I had to agree that the morsel under discussion had a great flake, but the filling seemed stingy and it certainly had a soggy bottom. We moved onto our opponents, who would be in the 'your boys took a hell of a beating' rant should the first win happen tonight against Hartlepool? Jeff Stelling (obviously) topped the list, Captain Cook was suggested, H'Angus the monkey came the offer from the Bramhall Whites section of our area but beyond that we were stumped.

Of course there was a game going on but I was enjoying the evening too. The Shakers taking the lead raised spirits, and also started the checking of watches towards half, then full time. Worrall's glorious second was eclipsed by a wonder goal only seconds later leaving the slenderest of leads again. Efe was performing heroics, I asked the boys behind if removing his bandana would be a bookable offence? In a style that Kendo Nagasaki had to wear his mask, would Sodje be able to function if a Mick McManusesque opponent tried to remove his talisman? Suggestions came that the bandana covers the wires and robotics of a terminator style cyborg who would keep going even as his functions expired one by one, then the penalty came.

The law of Sod says that if it can happen, it'll happen to Bury (especially this season). However for once the stonewall pen was blasted against the bar, Efe resisted again in the dying seconds (as did the woodwork for a 2nd time) and even 5 minutes of injury time couldn't spoil the evening.

I set off home happy, equilibrium starting to return to the matchday experience.

In an SOS sandwich on the M62

Halfway home after yesterday's dismal defeat to Preston I could bear it no more. I rang radio manchester. I'd been listening to Jimmy Wagg and Steve Eyre talking about the game and wanted to have my say.

Not many did, from Gigg to pulling over at Saddleworth (despite a bit of a queue to get away from the ground) no one had wanted to moan, vent, criticise or (improbable as it would be yesterday) praise. Radio Sheffield's original phone in - Praise or Grumble - would have been white hot after a derby capitulation during, what feels like, a prolonged dither over the replacement manager. But no I was the only caller during my ride through reception distance.

I'd wanted to ask how we had the least potent strike force in living memory, I'd wanted to politely suggest that Peter Shirtliff return to his assistant job, let Futch return to playing at Halifax and talk about the ongoing issue of the day with why lower league football fans are feeling marginalised and out priced. I think I got about 50% of my aims in with Jimmy trying to steer me to who I wanted to be the next manager and getting Steve Eyre to put himself up for the Shakers job.

Such was the Shakers heavy presentation I found myself neatly segued between a resigned sounding manager, and a frustrated sounding Skarz, the O (for other) in an Shirtliff Other Skarz sequence. No one offered any way out, we all bemoaned our lack of firepower and Shirtliff acknowledged that surely now a recruitment process would begin - with the transfer kitty spent and the team next to bottom.

I returned home mostly vented of my frustration, only to then read the various twitter comments later in the evening which filled my frustrat-ometer back to over brimming. Captain Schumi blamed everyone but himself (and he's been dismal since Barker's departure) and Marcus Marshall happily retweeted every comment supporting his inclusion and denouncing the current management set up. I read with amazement that the club believe LJL and Cullen will get goals and replied to the clubline tweet saying I believe in Santa and the Tooth fairy and that strike combination has more goals in it than our current selection.

Much has happened since I last posted to this blog, but the events of yesterday have raised me from my commenting slumbers. Hopefully the start of the process towards a new manager will set the Shakers back on a positive course, otherwise it could be a long winter on the M62 talking to Jimmy.