BURY FC pays its bills — that’s the promise by the club’s new owners who say they are looking to rebuild trust off the pitch after a successful campaign on it so far this season.

New director Matt McCarthy, and chief executive (CEO) Karl Evans spoke exclusively to The Bury Times following last week’s shock winding-up petition by the HMRC — which was dismissed before the judge allowed another such petition to be served moments later.

They say they want to create a culture of honesty and openness as they move forward with what they describe as “exciting plans” for the club.

McCarthy — who took up his post in December along with new owner Steve Dale — said the Shakers’ new management team were working to change the perception of the club in light of the court hearing last week and two previous winding-up orders in 2016.

He stressed progress was being made in sorting out the financial situation and negotiating with creditors who were owed money.

McCarthy said: “People are under the impression we inherited the club in a very good situation, unfortunately it wasn’t.

“We want to stress to the Bury community, that myself and Steve are very different to, not only to the previous ownership here, but a lot of other owners in football.

“We are quite happy to have conversations because we want the fans to understand the positives and the negatives.

“ Steve looked at local businesses and said he wanted them paid.

“There was £1,000 here, £600 there, a lot of those were settled.

“He focused on the businesses that needed the money first – £1,000 to a small business is a lot of money.

“We understand we have to rebuild the trust financially. We want to thank a lot of businesses in and around the community that came to us and said ‘look, we are owed money’.

“Some were quite sizeable chunks, but they have come into this business and seen what we are doing.

“We are honest and we are very transparent in what we do.

“We have made a lot of payments, we appreciate it is not our debt personally, we have taken on the football club and the football club owes that money.”

Mr McCarthy said “the ownership of the football club has changed but more importantly the attitude has changed”.

McCarthy said the new owners were working to make the club “self-sufficient and stable” with the plan to sort out the financial problems before the start of the new season.

Evans said: “There have been a huge amount of unknowns that are now becoming known.

“That’s been the problem, and no amount of due diligence would have brought these out of the woodwork.

“The chairman is trying to deal with the past as best he can with what he knows, and we are trying to get the football on track to deliver what we believe this club can deliver.

“What we are doing is getting back to the people – the community – and talking to them, and they are being overwhelmingly receptive; they want the football club in the town to do well.

“We are progressing, moving forward. Yes, these reports and winding-up petitions came out of the woodwork. They are not very pleasant things to go through and they have repercussions.

“We are challenging certain things.

“We can’t say we are a community club when you’ve got a butcher, baker and candlestick maker who feel like they have been not paid by the football club.”

The new management said building trust with the community and businesses was vital to drive the club forward.

Evans added: “What we are doing is making inroads in the right direction, but there will be the odd bump in the road and we have got accept that.

“From our perspective we are ready for it. There is no click of the finger and all this disappears.

“There is some contesting of certain things to be done. We are not just going to take them lying down; there are negotiations to be done.”

Things are looking up on the pitch recently with the Shakers third in League Two, and currently unbeaten in their last eight league games — with six victories and two draws.

They are also one game from Wembley in the Checkatrade Trophy, and their youngsters have just reached the quarter-finals of the FA Youth Cup for the first time in 53 years.

McCarthy said: “We want people to come and re-engage with the club – fans and businesses.

“We want to give people the confidence to say they would like to work for Bury.

“There is going to be a whole raft of positive developments in the season and the business is going to grow.

“If we go from a League Two club to a League One club, the demands of the business are going to double.

McCarthy said his message to fans was: “Draw a line in the sand on what has been done and trust the new management.”

“Trust what we say. I know it is asking a lot but if they stay with us over the next couple of months they will see positive developments.

“At the moment we are just dealing with the past, and it is slowing us down in building for the future.

“But there are things going on behind the scenes that will blow the fans’ minds… what we have planned for the future. On the pitch everything is going well, so the fans have something to buy into and believe in compared to last year when it was negative both on and off the pitch.”