Match programme: York City v Bury (1 September 1959)

About this match programme

By Richard Snowball

This programme is for the fourth match of the 1959-60 season away to Bury.

York had won promotion to Division Three the previous season finishing 3rd in the Division Four table and would play top name sides Southampton, Norwich City, Q.P.R. Reading and Coventry City.

The two teams had met a week earlier at Bootham Crescent when York won 1-0 in front of a crowd of 9,715 with new signing John Edgar scored the winning goal.

Just over a month later on the 3rd October 1959 John Edgar scored the fastest hattrick in the York City's history in six minutes in the home match against Accrington Stanley.

The return match with Bury, featured here, attracted an attendance of 14,666 to Gigg Lane with Bury winning 2-0.

The match was played on the 1st September, 1959, which was almost sixty years to the day to Bury going in liquidation and losing their Football League place.

This emphasised the sorry state of lower league English football when a club with such a great history as Bury, (they won the F.A.Cup twice in the early 1900's), are forced to close their doors.

The main people to suffer are the supporters who have followed their clubs through thick and thin. Compare this with Premier League clubs who pay their players extortionate wages that would keep a lower League side going for a whole season.

Sad to say, Bury probably will not be the last club to suffer this fate.

Acknowledgement

This facsimile of the match programme was created by the publisher of There’s Only One Arthur Bottom, the daily email newsletter for fans of York City FC, and TOOAB contributor Richard Snowball.

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