Bury FC fans have spoken of their sadness and anger after a last-minute takeover bid for their club collapsed.
The Football League set a deadline of 5pm today for potential new owners to agree a deal to buy the 134-year-old club.
But just a couple of hours before the deadline the proposed buyers C&N Sporting Risk pulled out of the deal , leaving Bury on the brink of expulsion from the EFL.
Concerned fans gathered at Bury's Gigg Lane stadium throughout the afternoon as the grim news of the failed takeover came through.
Telephone engineer James Reed, 60, came to Gigg Lane to help with a clean-up of the ground , hoping and expecting to hear news that the club had been saved.
Instead he was devastated when he learned a last-minute deal to save the club had failed and Bury faced the prospect of being thrown out of the league.
"I'm angry. I'm really angry," admitted James, who saw his first game aged ten (a one-nil loss to Derby at Gigg Lane). He had just come down with his mates to watch.
He splashed out £2,000 to become a season ticket holder for life in 2003.
James and other fans are furious with Bury owner Steve Dale and what they regard as his dismissive attitude towards the club after hearing him say in a radio interview 'it is what it is', adding that people needed to blame someone and it appeared to be him.
The owner's behaviour had been 'disgusting', said James, adding: "I think unfortunately my club may die today. But hopefully a fan will take over and we will become another Accrington Stanley or Wimbledon. Hopefully honest people will get involved and it will continue. I think we will come back.
"But today is a sad day. It's a heart-breaker."
Another fan Mark Dunne, a company director, 32, looked stunned when he said: "These fans here have lost therapy. People go about their day-to-day lives with the challenges that brings and at the weekend they get a release from that here."
He described how he lost his mother recently and that watching Bury 'gave me an escape for that hour and a half'.
"If it's that powerful, what does it do for other people with the challenges in their lives? It's not like Old Trafford. It's not just 'let's go and watch the football'. It's about going to see your mates."
He added: "I think people have just their week-to-week therapy. If this had happened at any other football club there would have been a riot."
Retired Kathy Marshall, 67, who was wearing her Bury top, said: "It's disgusting. This is our future. I'm just so upset."
Her husband John, 57, said: "We have a proud history as a football club. It's not right. We have nothing left now."
