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New hope at Bury

Being a lower league club in Greater Manchester is particularly challenging. This is certainly the case for Bury, 30 minutes by Metrolink from City and United. Fans had to rattle the buckets for funds when the club faced insolvency in 2001.

Stewart Day, a Blackburn-based property developer, stepped in to save the club in 2013, but his tenure will be remembered for unpaid bills, HMRC winding up orders and a wage bill that crept beyond £4m in an attempt to reach the Championship. A series of loans were taken out, often at exorbitant interest rates, to cover losses of £50,000 a week and players were played late as recently as November.

Last month Day sold the club to Steve Dale, a Cheshire-based businessman. Debts are to repaid or consolidated and there are plans to rebuild the social club, bring concessions in house and develop Bury's Carrington training complex which was vacated by Manchester City in 2014.

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