Every football supporter should be feeling shaken by Bury's sad demise

The desperate demise of Bury and the extreme difficulties experienced by Bolton Wanderers has sent shockwaves way beyond the immediate areas of anguish and anger just north of Manchester.

Because if those marvellous old pillars of English football’s heritage can crumble, so can dozens of other clubs. For Bury fans the grief is fresh and raw. It could be your team one day.

We can sense what it must be like to be a Shakers supporter even if we are not experiencing their feelings of emptiness and desolation, and we know that sooner or later other clubs will enter the intensive care unit, their futures hanging in the balance.

It is good that you have to go all the way back to 1992 to find the last club, Maidstone, to be expelled from the Football League, but it might be nearer 27 hours than 27 years before it happens again, and that is a huge cause for concern.

Football fans should have to worry only about whether they will come away with zero, one or three points from their next game, not whether there will even be a next game.

Outside the financially bloated world of the Premier League it is always going to be a battle to balance the books but, as with any business, sensible budgeting should insulate against the risk of oblivion, and it is worth remembering the need for financial prudence the next time you express your exasperation that the board have not splashed the cash on new players as lavishly as you would have liked.

Attempts have been made to console Bury fans by pointing to those clubs that went bust and rose again, but these are unlikely to wash at this sad and painful moment.

Yes, it has happened, but it takes years and it also takes colossal energy, effort and expense to create a going concern from the ashes.

The Football League needs to do all it can to minimise the risk of other fans experiencing the torment that is currently being felt around Gigg Lane. Is, for example, the fit and proper person rule a fit and proper rule?

One of the saddest aspects of the Bury story is that Rory Campbell and Henry Newman, who represented the last hope, would almost certainly have been excellent owners of the club on all known form.

They are successful businessmen who know football intimately, but could clearly not, despite their best intentions, see how the pieces of this broken entity could be put back together without costing significantly more than it was worth.

Campbell and Newman, through their Sporting Risk company, have shown themselves to be shrewd analysts of the game and it is interesting that, while the reputation of betting is lower now than it has been in decades, it is a sphere that has also produced two of the best current owners in English football in Tony Bloom at Brighton and Matthew Benham at Brentford.

Brighton are a club who should act as a shining beacon to all those who fear or have feared the threat of being vaporised. They were homeless and hopeless for many years but are now a prosperous Premier League club with a sensational new stadium and an exciting future.

Other clubs may perform similarly stunning survival acts in years to come but for Bury fans that ray of light at the end of their tunnel has been bricked up, leaving them numb and bewildered.

A colossal hole has been blown in their lives and it must feel utterly horrible. Your love for your team is deep rooted. It’s in your heart, your soul, your bones. It’s not as tangible as your love for your dog or a family member but it is nonetheless an integral part of you and to have it ripped away is extraordinarily cruel.

Let’s hope last night's sale means Bolton fans will be spared the agony. Sixteen years ago my young son, despite being a fully fledged Palace fan, wanted to go to what he called “a big match” so we went to see Chelsea, at the start of the upward trajectory under Roman Abramovich’s ownership, play Bolton at Stamford Bridge.

It was expected to be an easy home win, but Sam Allardyce’s Wanderers, boasting stars like Djorkaeff, Okocha and Campo, pulled off a 2-1 victory, a result that helped them get to within three points of a European place that season.

The future looked so bright then. For the club to have slumped as drastically as they have, from glory at the Bridge to the cliff edge, is truly shocking.

This weekend those of us with clubs that still exist will turn up with hope in our hearts. But we will moan about disputed corners and poor substitutions.

Supporters of top-six sides will rage into microphones bearing the name of tinpot TV channels about how the manager has to go because they could only beat a relegation candidate by a single goal.

And that’s fine because that’s what we do and nothing is ever going to change that. But for one weekend at least perhaps we could remember that however bad our defence was or how woeful that late missed chance, at least we are not suffering like those poor Bury fans are.

Bloodstock buyers must not be taken for a ride

It has been disappointing and puzzling to witness the widespread reaction to the recent publication of the BHA-commissioned report into how horses are bought and sold.

The report, put together under the leadership of former policeman Justin Felice, exposed various unethical and in some cases potentially illegal practices, and included eight recommendations, one of which was that the BHA should regulate the bloodstock industry.

It is hoped reforms can successfully be implemented so that people can buy and sell horses with greater confidence that they are not being taken for a ride, and let’s hope too that the animosity that exists in some parts towards change being effected disappears.

The report stressed that the vast majority of operators within bloodstock act properly and these people should be welcoming the desire to ensure that what Felice claims are “five per cent of bad apples” among bloodstock agents play by the rules.

If you work in bloodstock and are among the vast majority who go about their business professionally and scrupulously this report should be welcomed. Yet its release has been met in some quarters with a strange sense of resentment that anyone should have the temerity to raise questions over the way the industry currently works.

It has been claimed by various racing and bloodstock pros since the report was published that the BHA would be better off trying to improve prize-money. But when people buying horses use agents who, unbeknown to them, are also acting for the sellers or are indeed the sellers themselves, and when the culture of kickbacks and “luck money” is so ingrained, something has to be done.

Yes, prize-money is far lower than all racing professionals would like, but there is no magic wand that can be waved to solve that and making the buying and selling of horses a more transparent and trustworthy process is a justifiable and beneficial aim.

BHA chief executive Nick Rust deserves great credit for having taken steps to minimise some of the perils and risks involved in horse trading, and it should not have been left until well into the 21st century for action to have been taken.

Away-day delight makes for great viewing

There were seven away wins in last weekend’s Premier League games, which is not something that happens a lot, and it was great to watch so many deliriously happy visiting supporters.

Three successive highlights packages on Match Of The Day, at Vicarage Road, Bramall Lane and the Amex, were made all the more enjoyable because the away fans were positioned behind the goal which their team were attacking in the second half, sparking jubilant scenes when they scored.

In an ideal world this would be a rule that all Premier League clubs were obliged to adhere to. There would be practical issues to be overcome in many cases but the viewing experience, both for away supporters and those watching on TV, would be enhanced if it became standard procedure for teams to kick towards their own away fans in the second period.

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