By Liam Price
It’s the home fixture Dabbers fans will have been looking for first when the fixtures came out, and at the third time of asking we are finally set to host Bury on Tuesday night (7.45pm kick-off).
Match Information
You cannot come into this game without buying a ticket beforehand. It is all ticket and you must buy in advance, there will be no tickets available on the gate. There are sections for home and away fans and you can buy tickets HERE. The exceptions to this are Nantwich season ticket holders and those who bought tickets online for the postponed game from 30th September.
If you bought tickets in September but can’t go this time and you’d like a refund on tickets already bought, please email [email protected].
If you’re not able to buy online or have any other questions please call 01270 621771 or email [email protected].
Segregation will be in place. Bury have been allocated 400 standing tickets and 50 seated. There are Away Standing and Away Seated sections on the ticket page for visiting supporters. On the night, Bury supporters should enter to the left of the main Swansway Stand as you approach it and Nantwich supporters to the right. The exception is for Bury fans with seated tickets, who should go in through the home entrance. There will be separate drinking and toilet facilities for visiting supporters.
For fans planning to travel by car, we strongly recommend parking on the Snow Hill leisure centre car park which is just up the road from the Swansway Stadium. It is free to park there after 3pm week-round. The stadium and overflow car park fills up quickly and parking on the road next to the ground is extremely dangerous for residents of the housing estate and should be avoided.
Dogs are allowed as long as they are kept on a lead.
The Travelling Wil-Burys
No one has won more games at home in the NPL West than Bury, but only Kidsgrove and Newcastle have won fewer away from home. It’s a strange difference in form but it’s what’s stopping them from being right at the top of the league at the moment. For now they’re 4th and 8 points off leaders Lower Breck.
Including this game, they’ll have had 5 out of 6 away from Gigg Lane. Those have included defeats at Sporting Khalsa and Mossley and draws at Vauxhall and Bootle. After Tuesday, they face Breck at home next weekend in an absolutely huge fixture between the top 2 in last season’s North West Counties Premier.
Last Time We Met
Our last meeting was a 3-1 win for Bury in a friendly at the Swansway in 2024. But instead we’ll look at the meeting before that, which proved to be a significant day in Bury’s history for the wrong reasons. In July 2019, Bury visited the Weaver Stadium at the height of their financial issues, which were borne out in stark fashion when all 22 Bury players on the day were named as trialists (copied below). The game finished 1-1, and just a month later they were expelled from the EFL. After a couple of years under the fan-owned phoenix club name Bury AFC, they reclaimed their historic name by merging with Bury FC and are now regularly getting crowds of over 3,000 at Gigg Lane in the eighth tier.
Nantwich Town: Greg Hall, Caspar Hughes (C), Matty Devine, Joe Davis, Josh Langley, Troy Bourne, James Lawrie, Matt Bell, Joe Malkin, Jamie Reed, Will Saxon
Subs used: Joe Mwasile, David Webb, Harry Goode, Josh Williams, Joe Howell, David Neligwa, Will Foster
Bury FC: Trialist, Trialist, Trialist, Trialist, Trialist, Trialist, Trialist, Trialist, Trialist, Trialist, Trialist
Second Half XI: Trialist, Trialist, Trialist, Trialist, Trialist, Trialist, Trialist, Trialist, Trialist, Trialist, Trialist
Att: 424
Players to Watch
Where else to start than with Kai Evans. The feeling last summer was that he’d be heading a division or two higher after 2 superb years with the Dabbers but it was Bury that was his destination. A couple of grumbles on social media about his early performances at Gigg Lane would have come across as premature to any right-minded Nantwich supporter and he’s hopefully winning those people round with his form now. He’s up to 4 league goals for the season and scored recently against Kidsgrove.
The list of other dangerous players includes Djavan Pedro (7 goals), Rustams Stepans (5 goals) and Tyler James (4 goals).