THE past fortnight has provided lots of news items for supporters of Bury FC to discuss -- mostly bad news, regretfully. One event which has given supporters that sinking feeling is the decision of the club directors to discontinue its youth development policy.

With the club strapped for cash, the net cost of upwards of £200,000 has proved to be too much for the club to bear, especially as grant funding for next season was looking increasingly dubious, we are told.

"Youth development" and "Reserve team" are not one and the same and there appears to have been some confusion about the two functions.

In his Director's Update on the Forever Bury website, Roger Barlow stated: "Only one player in 20 years has progressed all the way through the Youth development section and become a first team member". Perhaps that statement will come as a surprise to many supporters but Roger Barlow is surely confident of his ground to make it. This situation illustrates one of the problems of large scale communication.

Those people who are into modern communications techniques tend to have the attitude that if an item is published on the web, the whole world has been informed. Of course, that is not so and a huge section of the population does not have access to the web and those people who have, do not necessarily call up the Forever Bury web pages. The printed word still serves the huge majority of the population.

Nevertheless, the department of Gordon Sorfleet as the club's website manager and press officer was another blow. Gordon was a good mate to Forever Bury and was so enthusiastic in his job, he was picked as the UEFA Fan of the Year last summer.

The club have resolved to keep the Bury FC website going, with temporary help from Supporters' Trust (Forever Bury) members but it won't be the same as having a full-time professional on site seeking out the news and stories. We are going to miss him and can only hope the club finds a successor soon.

In the meantime, anyone visiting the Farmers' Market at Ramsbottom on Sunday, be sure to patronise the Forever Bury stand. We will be selling Forever Bury beer among a selection of items.