Their Soccer Club Vanished. They Kept Coming.

Curtis is the exception. He was the groundskeeper here for 26 years. “Was? I don’t like that past tense,” he said. Nobody has played on the field at Gigg Lane since July 24, when Blackburn Rovers came for a preseason friendly ahead of a season that, for Bury, never started. It is not yet clear if anyone will ever play here again.

Still, though, once a week or so — depending on the weather — Curtis goes out and cuts the grass, making sure the playing surface is as pristine as it can be. It is, he said, a good field; he is proud of it. “We’ve seen with other clubs, the stadium falls into disrepair,” he said. “We don’t want it to go to rack and ruin, whatever happens.”

Like the others, Curtis is not being paid. He has not been paid for months. The hope is that liquidation might at least trigger a so-called redundancy package, the British term for a severance payment that might deliver some of his lost wages. As far as his friends and neighbors are concerned, he must be “either stupid or mad” to continue to come to work. His family, at least, understands: His mother and sister are here with him, after all. He met his wife at the club, too.

Source: The New York Times

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Keywords:

Association football • Gigg Lane • Blackburn Rovers F.C. • Bury F.C. • Layoff • Severance package • Family • Mother • Sibling •