Bury v Crawley Town just doesn’t shout out as a game that “you cannot miss” when the fixtures were released at the beginning of the season, but Reds fan Warren Lucy found plenty of appeal.
With added spice due to current Reds manager Richie Barker, formerly being in charge of proceedings at Gigg Lane, with the 37-year old, also having a number of ex-Shakers in his squad.
The start was an early one; the 6am alarm soon arose and an hour-and-a-half later, the coach up to Greater Manchester departed from The Broadfield Stadium.
An un-eventful journey up there and clear roads saw us enter the town of Bury, the place where both the Neville brothers, Gary and Phil were born and probably, quite a few of the Coronation Street cast as well.
Dropped off, we headed straight for the nearest pub. It wasn’t bad; nice Strongbow and a plate of nachos set us up nicely. Most talk in “The Swan and Cemetery” ( a very upbeat sounding place!) was that of Billy Clarke and whether he would start - he didn’t.
The only change was new boy Jake Taylor slotting into the centre of the park, with Josh Simpson still recovering from injury.
Prior to the game, Reds fans were hopeful that the team will come away with all the points; Krunaal Patel, 21, from Furnace Green, said: “It will be 2-1 to Crawley today. I think Matt Sparrow will score and probably Nicky Adams again. It’ll be difficult to see where the goals will come from without Billy Clarke up front. A win today could see us kick on and hopefully have an outside chance of the play-offs.”
The game began and ended and it was a very positive performance. Taylor looked impressive in a role that looked as if he was asked to push on to help the lone front man in Jamie Proctor.
Proctor ended up with a brace and it was a professional performance.
Krunaal reflected: “I thought Jamie Proctor did really well and Jake Taylor was decent. Connor Essam also impressed me. It was a solid performance and we deserved all three points.” Krunaal continued: “Jamie wasn’t that great at first but after the performance, [v Bury] he should get some more goals. We’ve seen what he is capable of and was my man of the match.
A delighted Dan Palmer, 23, and also from Furnace Green, concluded: “A solid performance from start to finish. We hardly looked under any pressure. I felt [Connor] Essam and [Joe] Walsh played well and [Jamie] Proctor was brilliant, taking both goals well. Also, there was great support from those who travelled!
A Red exile had his thoughts too; Ben Blackmore, 20, from Southampton reviewed: “Reds played well, Bury were a poor side but Crawley did well to capitalise on that. Bury looked very nervy especially at the back but Barker and Co looked fired up on their return. Mike Jones for me had one of his better games of the season. The goal two minutes into the second half was key as it killed the game off. If we hadn’t have got that goal when dominating then we might have drawn, but overall no complaints from the boys who went in got the job done and returned with three points.”
The win sets us up nicely for a week where we have two very winnable home games with Carlisle United on Tuesday and Saturday’s game agains t the world’s oldest professional football club; Notts County.