The tearful, surprising, ecstatic return of Bury FC

138 years of history restored at Gigg Lane

Good morning Millers — it’s a new month and it’s a new era for one of the North’s great old football clubs: Bury FC. Many thought Bury were dead and buried (sorry) when they were kicked out of the football league in 2019 over financial mismanagement, including unpaid wages. But this weekend, we watched them rise from the ashes at the historic Gigg Lane.

“The whole place is rocking,” Jack Walton writes. “The woman working her way up and down the aisle with raffle tickets greets her customers like long-lost siblings. Dads cluster in the stands with plastic bottles of Carling and kids hurtle around the zone between the seats and pitch as though the stewards are running some kind of crèche.”

It’s a lovely piece. Enjoy that — and please let us know if you can help out with the two little requests below.

• Firstly, we’re hoping to speak to female police officers who either work in Greater Manchester Police right now or who have done in the recent past. The conversations we are having for this …