BURY co-chairman Fred Mason reckons catching the club's hooligan fans is like hunting down Osama Bin Laden.

The Shakers last week announced they were waging war on a handful of supporters who had racially abused their own players.

The campaign was launched after abuse from the terraces reached an alarming peak during the draw at Torquay a fortnight ago, visibly upsetting the players and manager Andy Preece.

A joint surveillance operation between Bury, the police and opposition clubs has been underway for several months, with CCTV cameras backing up stewards and 'spotters' at ground level.

Noticeably the boo boys were silent for the visit of Leyton Orient at Gigg Lane last weekend and Mason predicted few problems for the trip to York tomorrow, claiming the half dozen perpetrators had gone into hiding.

"We have a very good idea who these people are but now it's just about catching them in the act, so we can have evidence against them," he said.

"They know we are on to them now, so they'll probably go quiet for a while.

"It's like trying to find Saddam Hussain or Osama Bin Laden. We just have to be diligent and wait for them to surface."

But the group's low profile is also a welcome boost to Mason, who claims their behaviour may have caused a dip in attendance figures, with only 2,700 turning out for the Orient clash.

"The gate was down by at least 500," he said.

"You can never know for sure if that was down to them but if you had the choice of standing with people like that or staying at home to watch football on the telly, which would you pick?

"Getting people to come and watch us is like trying to push an elephant up a hill at the best of times, without these idiots making it worse."

Gate receipts have not been helped by the wintry conditions of late, which have twice forced the postponement of Bury's home clash with Oxford.

And Mason reckons the big freeze could affect club coffers, long after a lean February draws to a close.

"We have only had two games in February but we've had to pay five weeks wages, so our cash flow is struggling," he explained.

"The other concern is that we are now going to have a lot of matches bunched together in March. There are four games in around ten days at one point and a lot of fans just won't have the money to go to all of them.

"So we simply have to get these matches played. When you are working on a week-to-week basis, you need that money."