It’s all about the fans….share your Bury football stories for exhibition

Friday, 19 July 2024 15:20

By David Murphy

Image credit: LS Lowry, Going to the Match, 1953 © The Estate of L.S. Lowry. All Rights Reserved, DACS 2024

Bury FC fans are being invited to share their stories of what it’s been like to support their favourite football club.

The team at Bury Art Museum is asking supporters to put pen to paper and send them your memories of being a fan over the years and what Bury Football Club means to you.

These stories will be included in a booklet, to tie in with an exhibition coming up in Bury.

LS Lowry’s masterpiece Going to the Match is going on public display in Bury Art Museum from 4 October 2024 to 1 March 2025. The 1953 painting shows fans arriving for a Bolton Wanderers game at their former home, Burnden Park. This hugely important and much-loved work of art had been on public display at The Lowry since it opened in 2000. It is now on a year-long tour of five North West galleries: Gallery Oldham; The Grundy Art Gallery, Blackpool; the Williamson Art Gallery & Museum, Birkenhead; the National Football Museum, Manchester; and finally Bury Art Museum.

Following a high-profile campaign, Going to the Match was purchased at a record £7.8 million by The Lowry in Salford for The Lowry Collection at the Modern British & Irish Art Sale at Christie’s in London in October 2022, thanks to the generous support of The Law Family Charitable Foundation. Going to the Match came home and was returned to public display at The Lowry in November 2022, and now The Lowry is delighted to be working with venues across the North West to ensure that the piece can be enjoyed by audiences across the region. Supported by a £95,000 grant from Arts Council England through its National Lottery Project Grants programme and additional support from The Sir Bobby Charlton Foundation, the tour will mean this iconic painting can be enjoyed by the widest possible audience across the region.

Also on display, as part of the exhibition, will be iconic photographs of football fans of various teams from the North West, such as Manchester United, Manchester City, Everton, Liverpool, Oldham, Bolton and of course Bury Football Club!

Share your memories of Bury FC!

Your stories should be no more than 350 words long, in Word format (not PDF), and please feel free to include a good quality jpeg image of yourself at a match if you wish. The deadline for sending your stories is 26 August 2024.

If you want to take part, please email your stories to artgallery@bury.gov.uk