Astonishing final-game deciders, postponed playoffs and the unluckiest team in the country with 100 points
Six years after Bury were expelled from the league, last weekend they smashed a North West Counties league record by attracting a crowd of 8,719 to Gigg Lane as they sealed the first promotion since they were reborn by thrashing Burscough 4-0, a 15th successive victory. A measure of this achievement: the previous record crowd, the 6,023 who watched FC United of Manchester lose 1-0 to Great Harwood Town, was set in April 2006 (the 5,834 that saw Bury draw 2-2 with Ramsbottom United on Boxing Day sits at No 3 on the list); only one team in non-league football, Southend in the division above the division above the division above the division above them, have had more people at a game this season; Bury’s average attendance in the ninth tier of English football, 3,315, is bigger than that of five teams in League Two and one in League One, as well as seven in the Portuguese top flight; that record attendance was 2.7 times larger than the total attendance at the other 11 games played in their division on the final day. A couple of other familiar names with big fanbases also hope to end the season with a celebration: Scunthorpe United, with the fourth-biggest average attendance in non-league football, are two points behind Kidderminster Harriers and Brackley Town in the hunt for a single automatic promotion spot in National League North (though Brackley are at home to rock-bottom Farsley Celtic, who are on a run even sillier than Bury’s having lost their past 17 league games), and Torquay, fifth in the attendance table, are in the National League South wild shake-up.
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