A trip to see my beloved Shakers
In his latest The Bar Man column, Jeff Hoyle discusses a trip to the Isle of Man...
The last time I saw my beloved Bury FC was in April 2019 on a wet and cold Tuesday evening at Gigg Lane. We lost 0-2 to Cambridge United and rumours were swirling around that the players hadn’t been paid. The rumours turned out to be true, and despite gaining promotion at the end of the season, the club was expelled from the football league.
Fast forward to the present day and the Phoenix team are back at Gigg Lane and playing in the North West Counties League, Step Nine of the football pyramid and the same level as Heacham and Downham.
It was time to go and watch them again and we chose an away game on the Isle of Man. The plane form Birmingham departed early, so we travelled the evening before and checked into a nearby hotel ready for an early start.
When we arrived at Birmingham International it resembled a building site. Temporary facilities and poor signage delayed us slightly, but the big hold up was security, with queues through the check-in area, up the lifts and down a corridor.
Despite being there almost two hours early, we had to take advantage of the guy picking out those whose flight was about to depart. We were placed in a fast-track queue and promptly forgotten as the staff members left to deal with a medical emergency.
You will have seen the film of someone rushing through an airport as they hear the final call for boarding over the tannoy. That was us. Fortunately, we made it and relaxed with our complimentary Tunnock for the 40-minute flight. When we arrived it was foggy, so we circled around for an hour before returning to Birmingham. Give Loganair their due. Within a half hour we were rebooked on the flight the next day, checked into a hotel and presented with for vouchers, £26 for lunch and £30 per person. Do all firms ending in -air treat their passenger so well?
We made it the next day having taken the precaution of purchasing a fast track for security and were looking forward to the big game next day at 6pm. That gave us time to take the bus up to Ramsay to check out the Trafalgar, a pub which was a deserved runner-up in the CAMRA National Pub of the Year competition.
The walk back to the bus took six minutes, during which we were soaked to the skin. A large bow wave preceded the bus back to Douglas and a 40-minute walk and three hours in an open stadium beckoned. Surely we can’t dip out now?
In the end we did not have to make a choice. The game was off, though not due to the weather. The Bury team had the fog experience and were back in Manchester. A desperate attempt to book them on the afternoon flight for a game Sunday morning failed as they had left the airport by the time the seats were confirmed.
However, when we rose next morning we were greeted with the news that they were on the 7am flight from Liverpool and the game was on at 11am. With around 800 Bury fans in the crowd of 2,500, The Manx v The Mancs ended in a 2-0 win for the Shakers, leaving us relieved and happy with three more days to explore a couple of excellent museums and try out the Good Beer Guide pubs in the capital, the majority of which were bare boards, loud and very male. We returned with great tales - unlike the local cats.
