Tranmere Rovers 1-1 Bury: Shakers promoted after draw
- Published
Bury have secured an immediate return to League One following relegation last season
Bury have been promoted to League One after drawing at sixth-placed Tranmere Rovers, whose own hopes of winning automatic promotion were ended.
Danny Mayor's second-half equaliser for the Shakers cancelled out James Norwood's 11th-minute header, which was the Rovers striker's 30th goal of the campaign in all competitions.
With Mansfield Town and MK Dons playing each other on the final day of the season, it is impossible for both sides to reach 79 points and leapfrog Ryan Lowe's side.
It means the Shakers, who were put up for sale last week, have achieved their third promotion to the third tier in nine seasons.
Rovers' point assures Micky Mellon's side of a play-off place, to keep alive hopes of a second successive promotion, but one of Mansfield or MK Dons will take the third automatic place.
Bury's rollercoaster season ends on a high
Bury's success on the pitch has been made all the more impressive by a series of challenges off it, with players sometimes paid late and a winding-up petition still to be resolved.
Last Thursday, chairman Steve Dale confirmed he was putting the club up for sale just five months after taking over, suggesting that the Shakers' financial situation was "significantly worse" than he had first realised.
The failure to pay March's salaries on time - for which director Matthew McCarthy later apologised - even left one of the club's League Two fixtures in doubt, although a postponement was avoided on the eve of the game.
Bury's promotion charge looked in danger of being derailed by the ongoing financial problems last month, when a run of four losses in five games dragged them back towards the chasing pack.
But Lowe's men gathered themselves to take four points from matches against Northampton and Tranmere, defying the odds with promotion back to League One.
It was also a great personal achievement for 40-year-old Liverpudlian Lowe, after suffering relegation 12 months ago, to win promotion in his first full season as manager - against one of his former clubs.