Long-serving secretary FRANK MANNING reveals how a club almost died. . .

FRANK Manning took tentative steps into a clubhouse that he could barely recognise.

Burglars had ransacked the bar at Bacup Borough, smashing every piece of glass in sight - windows, television, even the optics - anything that was breakable was shattered into minute pieces, strewn all over the floor.

It was the lowest point Manning had ever known in his long association with the West View club.

They had been on the verge of being kicked out of the North West Counties League and disappearing from the non-league scene all together.

But nothing compared to the hurt that the club's secretary felt when he saw how the clubhouse had been so callously demolished at the end of the 1996 season.

"I must admit I was on the verge of walking out after that," Manning confessed.

"I was summoned to the clubhouse by then chairman Dave Whatmough after the club had been broken into.

"It was only a small clubhouse - only open on matchdays and to entertain visiting sponsors - and people were always breaking in. But I'd never seen anything like it in my life.

"Everything had been smashed and there was human excrement all over the walls. I said at the time the club was never going to come back from that."

But out of sheer determination and a refusal to get dragged down by such despicably anti-social behaviour, they enjoyed the good times and battled through the bad times.

Manning was finally rewarded for his patience when Bacup were promoted after lifting the North West Counties Division Two title last season.

"We'd been promoted in 1988 but had gone up as runners up, so last season surpassed all the previous celebrations," said 69-year-old, who has hailed Borough manager Brent Peters as the catalyst for the club's success.

But it is just reward for Manning's efforts too, following his lifelong love affair with football in general but, in particular, Bacup Borough FC.

He was appointed secretary at the club in 1964, after initially getting involved in football administration in 1953, when he became secretary of the Bacup Amateur Football League - a position he held for 40 years.

He parted company with Bacup in 1975 following a difference of opinion with the rest of the committee, before returning to the club in 1988 at the request of then vice chairman Ged Connolly.

On top of that, he was involved on the administration side of the Rossendale Sunday League and was a referees' assessor for the Lancashire Football Association.

"I had a very understanding wife," admitted Manning, who was instrumental in helping to rebuild Bacup Borough following the departure of Connolly just three months after Manning returned to the club.

"It was hard work, and there have been more downs than ups. But we started to see some light at the end of the tunnel.

"Bill Heywood, a businessman from Colne, was chairman at the time and he put money into the club, but with all the changes at the club with different managers and people coming and going, the administration side was in total disarray. It had to be bottomed but I did that and we battled on.

"It didn't help, though, that we were being fined for all sorts - late match reports, late team-sheets, registration irregularities. It was costing the club silly money, but I eventually got things back on an even keel."

But while things were improving off the pitch, they needed someone to take the football team itself on to another level.

In 1995 they eventually found their man. Brent Peters had already played a managerial role for the side in 1992 - midway through the season that Manning had to plead Bacup's case for re-application to the league.

"Some of our players had said Brent was just what we needed at the club," Manning said.

"We were due to play at Bradford Park Avenue on Boxing Day 1994. They were going for promotion but we were bottom of the table and couldn't get a team together. Brent was in Bacup over Christmas and, on Christmas Day, went knocking on people's doors throughout the town and managed to get a side together for the following day.

"We got beat 2-1, but we played well and people at Bradford said they couldn't understand how a team like us were bottom."

Peters was appointed Bacup Borough manager in 1995 after leaving Doncaster Rovers.

And while he hasn't needed to knock on any doors in search of players, he has assembled a quality team of which the town, and certainly Manning, are proud.

And the club's secretary believes Peters may even lead the side into the Football League within the next 10 years.

"If he can get the support he deserves, I think Brent can do it because his ambition and outlook is focused on that," he said.

"I'll be 70 this time next year, so I don't think I will see it happen, but I certainly hope so!"