In a build up to the big ‘derby’ game I want to let you into a little secret. I like bury!

Now before you all stop reading this and treat me like some foam fingered, Inter Milan top before the end of season wearing toss pot, its true, they have now become my favoured team. Not in an arse kissing, love in, that sometimes happens when posters get together with Robshaker et al, but when 2-30 pm comes round on match days and you have to make the other results in our division a little more interesting through betting – I like bury!

If some of you remember last season (2006-2007) bury had a slump! The sort of slump that you see on a teenager shoulders when, god forbid, you have to tell them to do the washing up or clean their room or dispose of their favourite monkey spanking mags. With Casper in charge last season around December bury went of the kind of run that was nothing short of abysmal. From mid December that season they won just three of the remaining games, which by the seat of their pants (or should that be shorts!), stopped them being the first FA Cup winners to be relegated out of the league. Where are you going with this you git TTNYear?

Well in December this year the bucket shaking boys had a couple of blips. Wrexham and Morecambe, who were both soon to get dragged into the relegation battle at the bottom of the league, took two handy wins at Stade de Gigg and TTNYear smelt blood. Surely a team with such a great history can’t actually, well, repeat history. It was too much of a temptation and for the next game (Hereford), money was placed. And as resignations follow shorts, Hereford came away with the points and TTNYear more than doubled his money! For the next three months Bet 365 lived in fear. Calls were being screened as my betting account was benefiting from the fact that bury only picked up two draws in the next nine matches, the others were all losses and guess who was betting against bury? By February staff at the betting call centre knew what bet I was going to place ….

Bet 365 – Hello sir. What can we do for you

TTNY – Well to be fair you should know by now?

Bet 365 – Oh god sorry I didn’t realise it was you TTNY. Of course, who are bury going to lose to today? Dagenham and Redbridge? No surely not? Well it’s your money! They’re crap and surely even the famous market town of bury will be able to beat that non league suburb of London shit hole at home?

TTNY – Look pal don’t try and put me off it’s a banker, they have KACC in charge and that sounds more like shite to me!

Bet 365 – Ok sir bets on, speak to you next week.

And that’s what pretty much went on until someone at Gigg Lane finally woke up and decided that these constant losses would not be good for the future of the club. Although my betting account was bulging more than the waistline of a bulimic John Prescott, things weren’t well at the footballing Mecca, and KACC had to be flushed away, replaced by the equally amusingly named Alan Knill. Bury and Knill? I had been backing this type of combination for the past three months!!! Would it be worth continuing this profitable punt considering their new leader?

‘Look if Hilly can wear a lucky scarf I’ll do ‘owt  to turn around this  shower of shite!’

The answer to this question was quick coming and the betting account took a spanking of Max Mosley proportions in late February/early March, as the ginger haired ‘rat man’ some how made a bumbling set of wasters produce draws and wins from some tough games. So it was back to the drawing board. Could I muster myself to actually back bury to win? I spent many a sleepless night pondering the unthinkable! Could my principles support such an undignified stance? Would I be hounded out of the Sandy Lane end just for even thinking the unthinkable? Sod it, I thought, it might just come off!

Ironically as Morecambe were the catalyst to back against bury, they were the same team that made me change tact and bet for them as Morecambe were the next visitors to the home of the Ginger Genius. A 2-1 win later and I knew that maybe, just maybe I could carry on betting for bury. It proved a master stroke as bury pulled away from relegation by winning five of the next eight games and no matter the derision from other Dale fans I kept steadfastly betting on our bitter, very bitter rivals, although to be fair Bolton are their bigger rivals as we are constantly being told….. who they last played when???

Now where does this lead us? Well by the time bury beat relegation threatened Notts County at the beginning of April the bury bet was realising somewhere over the £200 mark and our club quite kindly offered to freeze Season Tickets for next season, if you purchased before June….. mmmm! Oh yes! I have to thank bury fc for the purchase of my season ticket for the 2008/2009 season. Which ever division we finally end up playing in next season, I owe it all to bury fc and their predictability. Every time I go through the turnstiles in the Sandy Lane, I will be thinking…. plucky bury they have paid for 50% of my footballing entry fees that season

Thank you bury… much!

Photo: Action Images

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