BURY director Ian Harrop has repeated his call for fresh investment into the club.

The Shakers supremo has admitted the Gigg Lane outfit are actively searching for outside help, but believes a strong dressing room spirit will enable Alan Knill’s team to compete with big-spending rivals in the meantime.

League Two rivals Notts County have been taken over by a cash-rich Arab consortium and their financial muscle has attracted both Sven Goran Eriksson and Sol Campbell to Meadow Lane on massive salaries.

Bury, with average attendances of around 3,000, have one of the smaller income streams in the division and Harrop says the door is always open for somebody to come in and plough money into the club.

“The club would love people to come forward,” said Harrop. “The board of directors at this football club would welcome anything that can help move us forward on the football, commercial and youth side.

“If we can make improvements to those areas, like we have done recently with the training ground, it attracts better players to the club and that is what it’s all about.

“We are actively looking for people to come forward and if anyone out there has the best interests of Bury Football Club at heart they can give us a ring and come in and have a chat with us. They would be made most welcome.”

Bury may be competing with teams that have more resources, but Harrop believes that can be overcome with a talented group of players.

“It’s football — you can’t stop people coming in and investing money into teams,” said Harrop. “It’s not just Notts County — teams like Rotherham, Bradford and Shrewsbury are doing it and they will always have more financial resources than us.

“But we will compete and that’s the thing that matters.

“We feel we have a good group of players and we will give anybody a good game. Of course, it is frustrating when you see teams like Notts County signing Kasper Schmeichel on a five year deal on money we couldn’t even remotely dream about — but we’ll still beat them.

“Money isn’t everything. At this level, if you have a group of players and a squad who pull together and all want to work hard for each other that is far more important than the money side.

“The manager will give everyone a chance and his ethic is that if the team is winning, he is loathe to change it so people know that if they do their job they will keep their place in the team.

“We feel we have a squad that is competitive in all areas.”