Stewart Day: Bury chairman reveals initial £1.5m investment

Bury chairman Stewart Day has revealed that more than £1.5m has been invested in the League Two club since his takeover was completed in May.

The Shakers were close to going out of business following their relegation to the fourth tier earlier this year.

Day told BBC North West Tonight the initial investment needed to stabilise the club was more than he expected.

"That's gone in to pay off the debts and move things forward, and there's more coming," he said.

"When we took over, the club was over their overdraft facility by quite a significant amount, so we don't have an overdraft facility at the football club any more. We live within our means.

"It's a difficult period because the first 12 months were always going to be the hardest. We're still paying for people who aren't at the football club - whether that's commercial staff, staff behind the scenes or playing staff. That's unfortunately part of the football world at the moment."

The financial support allowed Kevin Blackwell, who was sacked as Bury manager in October, to assemble an almost entirely new squad of players during pre-season.

Bury have also been looking at ways to bring in investment from other parties.

A sponsorship deal with sportswear firm JD Sports saw their Gigg Lane home renamed earlier this month, while the club have also been granted a licence to stage 10 music concerts per year.

There are also plans to re-lay the pitch at the end of the season, in addition to a number of renovation projects that have already taken place in the past few months.

On the field, however, results have not gone as well as expected and Bury lie 20th in League Two, despite ending their three-month wait for a home win against Hartlepool on Tuesday.

"It doesn't matter how successful we are off the pitch - everybody judges success at football clubs on the pitch," said Day. "Myself, the board of directors and the management team can't go and kick the ball for them [the players], as much as we'd like to."

But he is not contemplating the possibility of Bury dropping out of the Football League, adding: "I'm not worried.

"We don't talk about relegation here. That's not in our remit and I don't want our players even thinking about that.

"The division is so tight at this moment in time. If you can put a decent run together, you'll be well up there. We've got quality in this side and we need it to gel."