Гигг Лейн: Тарихы мен қайта жандануы

Football stadium in Bury, Lancashire

Gigg Lane is a football ground in Bury, Greater Manchester, England, built for Bury F. C. in 1885. The first match was played on 12 September 1885 between Bury and a team from Wigan. One of the world's oldest professional football stadiums, Gigg Lane was in continuous use by Bury until August 2019 when the club was expelled from the English Football League. The ground did not host competitive men's football between 4 May 2019, when Bury hosted Port Vale, and 29 July 2023. In November 2020, Bury F. C. was placed in administration and the ground was later put up for sale by the administrator. In February 2022, the Est.1885 fans' group completed a deal to purchase the entire property. They also acquired the trading name and memorabilia of Bury F. C. The new owners formed the company Gigg Lane Stadium Limited and stated their intention to reopen the ground as a football venue by August 2022. On 29 July 2023, the newly reformed Bury FC played its first game at Gigg Lane, beating Glossop North End 5–1 in the North West Counties Football League. Gigg Lane has four covered stands and has been an all seater stadium since 2000. Its capacity when last used in 2019 was 11,840. The record attendance is 35,000 for an FA Cup tie in 1960 when the stands were nearly all terraced. FC United of Manchester had a ground sharing agreement with Bury from 2005 to 2014. Besides football, the ground has been used for other sports including rugby league – it was the home of Swinton Lions for ten years from 1992.

Ahead of the 1885–86 English football season, the newly formed Bury F. C. leased a plot of land on Gigg Lane from the Earl of Derby's estate. On 12 September 1885, the first match played there was a friendly against a team from Wigan and Bury won 4–3. Gigg Lane is one of the world's oldest professional football venues; the oldest in continuous use (excluding wartime) is Deepdale, home of Preston North End, which opened for football on 5 October 1878, seven years before Gigg Lane. In 1889, Bury was a founder member of the Lancashire League and the ground began to be used on a regular basis. The first FA Cup tie played at Gigg Lane was a qualifying round match between Bury and Witton Albion on 3 October 1891, the home team winning 3–1. The ground staged its first match in the competition proper on 2 February 1895 when Bury defeated Leicester Fosse 4–1 in a first round tie. In 1894, Bury joined the Football League and competed in the 1894–95 Second Division, which they won, thereby gaining promotion to the First Division. Their first Football League game at Gigg Lane was a 4–2 victory over Manchester City on 8 September 1894, before a crowd of 7,070. Gigg Lane's lowest crowd for a competitive first team game is 461 at a Football League Trophy tie against Tranmere Rovers on 26 February 1986. The deal was terminated by mutual agreement in July 2015. In 2016, it was announced that the club was looking to build a new 15,000–20,000 capacity stadium elsewhere in the Metropolitan Borough of Bury. No progress was made and there was a change of club ownership in December 2018. On 19 February 2019, it was announced that the ground would be rebranded as the Planet U Energy Stadium after Bury concluded a five year sponsorship deal with the Leeds based renewable energy supplier of that name. It was intended that the stadium would be powered by 100 per cent renewable energy.

Bury's final match of the 2018–19 season in EFL League Two was against Port Vale at Gigg Lane on 4 May 2019. Despite earning promotion from League Two to EFL League One, the club was heavily in debt and, on 27 August 2019, was expelled from the Football League because it could no longer guarantee its financial viability. Gigg Lane has been closed since August 2019. The club was placed in administration on 27 November 2020 and, the following May, the administrator put the ground up for sale. In August 2021, a fans backed group, Est.1885, was named among the bidders to buy the ground and club. Est.1885 was given exclusivity, on 22 October 2021, to buy both the trading name and Gigg Lane. On 23 December 2021, the UK Government, through the Community Ownership Fund run by the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, pledged £1m towards the bid to buy back Gigg Lane. Est.1885 announced on 7 January 2022 that contracts had been exchanged on a deal to buy the stadium, the club's name and memorabilia, with plans to resume competitive football in August 2022. Bury MBC agreed a financial contribution of up to £450,000 towards the costs of recommissioning Gigg Lane.

On 18 February 2022, Est.1885 completed the purchase of Gigg Lane from the administrator and acquired the Bury Football Club trading name, history and memorabilia. On 21 February, it was confirmed that the owner of Gigg Lane (and of the Bury FC trading name) was a company called Gigg Lane Stadium Limited, who are limited by guarantee, and whose members are the Bury Football Club Supporters Society Limited and Gigg Lane Propco Limited. When a Bury FC team plays at Gigg Lane in future, it would represent Gigg Lane Stadium Limited. Meanwhile, the old club incorporated in 1885 – The Bury Football Club Company Ltd – remained in administration under the ownership of chairman Steve Dale, who bought the club in December 2018. Bury A. F. C. enquired about renting Gigg Lane but the request was rejected on 5 April 2022 as "not feasible" by the Bury FC Supporters Society who cited commercial risks and imbalances that could jeopardise a future merger with Bury AFC. On Sunday, 24 April, Bury FC Women returned to Gigg Lane for a friendly match against Fleetwood Town Wrens. This was the first match of any kind to be played at the ground since May 2019. Bury FC Women won 3–0 (1–0 at half time) before a crowd of almost 500, the goalscorers being Lucy Golding, Kimberley Tyson and Sophie Coates.

In October 2022, local football supporters were urged to vote in a poll, facilitated by the Football Supporters' Association, regarding a potential amalgamation of BFCSS (who owned Gigg Lane and the Bury FC name) and the Shakers Community Society (who owned the separate phoenix club, Bury AFC). If the merger was agreed at special meetings, a new society The Football Supporters' Society of Bury would be formed, based at Gigg Lane, while Bury AFC would change its playing name to Bury Football Club. However, amid continuing tensions between the two groups, the proposals failed to reach the required 66% threshold from both societies. In January 2023, Bury AFC said it had made several proposals to BFCSS to return professional men's football to Gigg Lane, including a solution which might unlock the DLUHC Grant Funding Agreement to purchase the ground, but its proposals had been rejected. In late January 2023, it was reported that BFCSS had submitted a detailed proposal to the North West Counties Football League (NWCFL) to restart a professional football club at Gigg Lane, though some of the claims were disputed by the Shakers group. After the application was rejected by the NWCFL, the BFCSS proposed to apply to the West Lancashire League, saying it was of "paramount importance that men's football is played at Gigg Lane next season", while negotiating for a second vote on amalgamation with the Shakers group. In March 2023, a second poll regarding a merger between Bury FC and Bury AFC was announced. BFCSS's Daniel Bowerbank talked about uniting the "broken fanbase", adding: "We've got a team with no stadium and then the other side with a stadium but no football team." Bury AFC's Phil Young said: "This is really the only way forward for us." The second merger vote was announced on 5 May 2023; members of both Bury FC and Bury AFC then voted to merge the two clubs. On 5 June 2023, the club said that the FA had confirmed that the name "Bury Football Club" could be used in competition for the first time since August 2019, with the club competing in the Premier Division of the North West Counties League, the ninth tier of the English football pyramid. The side won their opening league fixture of the 2023–2024 season on 29 July 2023 with a 5 1 victory over Glossop North End, played at Gigg Lane in front of almost 5,500 spectators (said to be record breaking for the division).

In 1993, the club began removal of all terracing and barriers in the ground as required by the recommendations of the Taylor Report, which was published in January 1990 following the Hillsborough disaster. The report required Football League clubs to convert their grounds into all seater stadiums and Bury had to rebuild all four sides of Gigg Lane. The new safety regulations had imposed a ground capacity of 8,000 and the club needed to raise £300,000 in order to commence the work. This was raised by means of a supporters' bond called the Shakers' Incentive Scheme, augmented by substantial takings from an FA Cup tie against Manchester United at Old Trafford. The ground was mostly terraced before the renovation work in which four covered stands were built and the stadium became an all seater. On the opposite side of the ground is the single tiered Les Hart Stand, also pitch length, which was formerly known as the South Stand and renamed after club stalwart Les Hart in July 2010. This is the largest of the four stands and is distinctive for its pattern of blue and white seats that spell out SHAKERS, the club's nickname. The Les Hart Stand adjoins the East Stand, enclosing that corner of the ground; the other three corners are open. The Manchester Road End is reserved for away supporters and can accommodate 2,100.

Other football clubs have used the stadium as a temporary home venue. In August 1994, Preston North End played a home League Cup tie there against Stockport County. The stadium has accommodated many sports besides football. From 1992 to 2002, it was a rugby league venue while Swinton Lions had a ground sharing agreement with Bury. Other sports played there have included American football, baseball, cricket and lacrosse.