Bury Relics Over 60 Whites entered the Greater Manchester Division 1 Walking Football League after reorganisation for the 2025 season. The members of the squad selected for Matchday 1 were Eddy (GK), Kev Amos, Kev Bates, Ian McCann, Ian McKinnon, Graham and Dave Gaskell with Keith Swain in attendance in case of injury/illness. Pat was Manager, Ken was Assistant Manager with Andy and Iain D supporting on a lovely early March day.
First up were Fleetwood with Ian McKinnon starting on the bench. We began well with Dave shooting just over the bar, but the Flyers have a dangerous front man who can hold it up and their midfield pile forward for his lay offs. The first move like this saw a brilliant diving save from Eddy but the second saw him drag it back to a free man who fired it past Eddy. As often happens they protected their lead and we pushed forward. We had 5 good shots, 2 from Ian McCann and 3 from Dave which their keeper either saved well or flew past the post but we just couldn’t get one in the back of the net. A 1-0 loss when a draw was merited.
Second match up for Relics was against Wakefield. Pat as manager had a difficult job of managing players not 100% fit for various reasons, a job that would get more difficult as the games progressed. Beautiful sunny morning but the sun was high enough in the sky to not cause too many issues. There was a long unexplained delay before this match, Kev Bates ( nursing an injured leg) was replaced by Ian McKinnon as part of Pat’s plan, Ian himself wasn’t fully fit due to back problems. Both teams created chances that tested the keepers at least three or four times each, however both Edd and the other keeper were up to the task making great saves. Man of match to Kevin Amos for great defensive performance. Fairly decent end to end game by both teams. Bury 0 Wakefield 0
Third match against Blackpool things did not go well. Kev Bates was back on replacing Ian McKinnon, Bury pressed quite high in this match but when the possession was lost Blackpool passed the ball quite easily up to their frontman several times either directly or via a midfield pass. Blackpool scored via one of their midfielders who threaded it nicely through quite a few bodies and took Edd by surprise. Kev Bates asked to come off as his knee was restricting his movement too much and Ian took his place, Bury seemed to get back into the game and were pressing well but then got hit twice in quick succession to end the game , (Ian McCann withdrew part way through the game due to breathing difficulties and was replaced by Keith Swain). Bury 0 Blackpool 3
Fourth game against Manchester Old Boys ( basically Kingsmaid rebranded except they still have Kingsmaid on their shirts🤷♂️). Ian McCann recovered and decided to play and Kev Bates stayed off as his knee was too sore, this was a pretty good match, lots of chances for Bury , Ian McKinnon had three cracking shots on target but then injury struck again, this time striker Dave Gaskill got trodden on quite badly and had to be replaced by Keith Swain, Keith did a great job keeping the Old Boys at bay. A wayward pass however by Graham saw their striker left unopposed at one point right in front of goal dead centre , Edd did a fantastic save from a point blank range shot. ( Graham said later he thought Edd was looking bored and wanted to test his reflexes 😂). Man of match to Kevin Amos again for a stalwart defensive performance. Bury 0 Manchester Old Boys 0
Now the final match and Pat’s managerial skills really put to the test. Kev Amos had to leave early, Dave Gaskill couldn’t play any further part due to injury so Pat was forced to ask Kev Bates to play. Being injured and restricted in movement it was decided to shove him up front as that would be least tasking physically. This was a great game. Winstanley are a good attacking team and Bury found themselves pinned back for large chunks of this game.
Winstanley had a very tricky striker complete with step-overs a lá Ronaldo albeit at less than half the speed, he tricked his way through to score. Bury were up against it again almost immediately and some frantic defending led to a DOGSO , Graham got blue carded and Winstanley converted the penalty. So now Bury are down to five players for the next four minutes, then the gods of football intervened. The thing is that when a team presses high like Winstanley did there is lots and lots of lovely space behind them and Ian McKinnon recognised this. There was a brief moment when he got the ball in his own half when everyone seemed to think there was an infringement of some kind everyone that is except Ian and the referee, Ian pointed out whilst moving the ball upfield “ the whistle hasn’t been blown “. Even without the temporary pause there’s no way Winstanley could get back to defend without running hell for leather, however, Ian still had to get past a midfielder on the half way line ,which he skilfully did like a knife through butter, advancing into their half he made a lovely weighted and precise pass to Kev who was waiting near the area with a defender on his shoulder, Kev controlled the ball turned and shot and buried it in the bottom right much to the surprise of… well probably everyone watching …including himself.
So it’s now 2 – 1 and Bury are smelling blood, but at this point Winstanley rally and score again. 3-1 but it’s not over, Graham returns from the sin bin and Bury forage forward… nothing to lose, Ian McCann finds a bit of space and rockets a shot in which bounces back off the keeper and into the path of Ian McKinnon who moves in for the kill but right on the edge of the area he is thwarted by a dastardly foul just as he was aiming his kick… there was blood and gore and body parts everywhere, or at least this is the impression that Ian was trying to make when he theatrically collapsed to the floor, don’t get me wrong… it was a nasty foul but let’s just say Ian wanted to make sure the referee agreed 😊. So now it’s penalty time and Ian McCann despatched it convincingly. 3-2 and now Winstanley are down to five men. Now for me there’s still a bit of controversy to come which got overlooked, he was sin binned for 4minutes like Graham but there was only about 2 minutes left, or less , which unfortunately didn’t prove long enough to get the equaliser . Should the match have continued until the sin bin time was used up to make it a fair form of punishment? 🤷♂️
Technically all of Bury’s players deserved a man of the match in this one as it was a real battle but I’m going to give it jointly to Ian McKinnon for his match changing move and to Kevin Amos … yes I know he wasn’t playing but everyone seemed to play with such tenacity in defence that it was as if he was there. A loss but a great battle. Bury 2 Winstanley 3
I’d also like to point out that over the course of all the games there were multiple shots on target and one or two not far off coming from five different players which I think is a good sign as we all know how hard it is to score in these games. Edd made many great saves and despite the results I think we did well against some tough opponents.
Bury Relics 