This is why reporting on local football clubs like Bury is so integral to their survival

If we don’t want to see more clubs go to the wall, the football community, including correspondents like me, need to take some responsibility

Bury Football Club were expelled from the English Football League last week (Getty)

Bury, one of the oldest clubs in English football, has been expelled from the Football League and left on the brink of liquidation. I went to Gigg Lane, their home ground, and spoke to supporters about the club’s plight. One of them was Dave Horner.

Horner was the type of vox pop you appreciate after being parachuted into a story you have not covered extensively before. Other fans I spoke to talked of sadness and anger about Bury’s demise, but Horner touched on something I had not expected.

“There is a certain sense of embarrassment that we haven’t done enough,” he said, believing he and his fellow supporters had acted too slowly, unfavourably comparing them with fans of other clubs who took early action against ruinous owners. “They can see the iceberg on the horizon,” he said. “We’re seeing it when it’s on the bow.”