THE dust is finally beginning to settle on Bury’s celebrations following their promotion to League One. Exactly half a century ago the Shakers were celebrating an even more amazing season. John Hudson looks back at that record-breaking campaign

Fifty years ago the Gigg Lane faithful were celebrating the most successful season in Bury’s history.

True, it was in the Third Division (now League One), and a far cry from the days of FA Cup glory early in the century.

But 1960-61 saw the most points and most goals ever mustered by the Shakers in a season: Played 46, won 30, drawn eight, lost eight, points 68 (98 by today’s counting). Goals for 108, against 45. Champions by six points.

Most of the work was done by just 12 men – seven others made only 30 appearances between them – and the only significant change in the line-up came early in the new year, when the blossoming young centre-half John McGrath went to Newcastle United in exchange for £25,000 and the ageing Bob Stokoe.

The only wobble in the season came in December and January, when the Shakers suffered six of their eight defeats, with McGrath either struggling for fitness or injured. Then came his big-money move, in came the seen-it-all old pro Stokoe, and Bury went the remaining 17 games of the season unbeaten.

The odd thing was, they were a motley looking bunch. Only four of them – half backs Brian Turner, McGrath and Gordon Atherton and inside-left Allan Jackson – struck you as athletic young men in their physical prime.

There was something about all the rest of them – advancing years, lack of inches, odd physical quirks – that made you wonder, and it was no great surprise when 12 months on, after a tough survival battle in the Second Division, the team had been torn apart. Manager Dave Russell had also moved on – but for one shining season they were the kings.

Bury dropped into the Third Division for the first time in their history in 1957, and a lot of fans felt they had disgraced themselves. Crowds fell to just over 10,000 in 1960-61, and believe it or not, that was seen as disappointingly low.

Most of the five-man forward line had been brought together in the summer of 1959, and it had taken them a season to gel. Amazingly, they were responsible for 99 of the 108 goals that season, with Jackson, centre forward Don Watson and right winger Bill Calder all helping themselves to 20-plus.

Out on the left wing, the bald and bandy little Johnny Hubbard, one of the great Glasgow Rangers stars of the 50s, weighed in with 17 goals as well as making countless others.

And while another distinguished old-timer, the ex-Burnley England B international Bill Holden, took a deep-lying role, he still grabbed 14 goals, including the match-winner at Bradford that clinched promotion.

In contrast to the forwards, the defenders and pre-Stokoe half backs had all been at Bury for years, and had first played together in the dark days of the Third Division North in 1957-8.

Goalkeeper Frank Adams began with Crawford’s Biscuits in the Liverpool Workshops League, and with his diffident nature, lank hair and tired, pale face, you could well believe he had come straight off a night shift on the cream crackers production line.

He was capable of breathtaking reaction saves but was less adept at coming off his line, cutting out crosses and generally bossing his area; when the aggressive Chris Harker was signed from Aberdeen, Frank’s days were clearly numbered.

The full backs Eddie Robertson and Bob Conroy were both little Scots who had come down from junior football, Eddie as wan-faced as Adams and “Killer” Conroy a bundle of aggression with his Dennis the Menace haircut. If it had not been for their lack of inches they would have been well capable of flourishing at a higher level – the stylish Robertson in particular.

It was the half-backs, though, who were the driving force of Bury’s triumph – Turner on the right cool, mean and pragmatic, Atherton on the left as all-action and colourful in his play as befitted his bright orange hair and pink face.

And between them, a central defender of utter reliability, be it the crown prince McGrath or the demon king Stokoe. As it happened, in the end, Newcastle turned Big John into the kind of pantomime ogre who made Stokoe look like Widow Twankey.

But that was for the future; 50 years ago Shakers fans were simply happy to wallow in the glorious present.

What happened to yester-year Shakers heroes

Sadly, only five of Bury’s 12 championship-winning players are still with us. Four out of the five forwards survive, Bill Holden having died at the age of 82 earlier this year.

But strangely, the situation is reversed with the defence and half-backs, including both centre-halves, with only Gordon Atherton around to enjoy this season’s anniversary celebrations.

The 1960-61 season was the career highlight for eight of the 12, with only Stokoe, Holden and Hubbard able to look back on greater triumphs and McGrath on the threshold of a long career at the top with Newcastle and Southampton.

Only Turner and Atherton went on to feature in the high-flying Shakers team managed by Bob Stokoe in the mid-Sixties, and Turner went up again with Bury in 1968, when they bounced straight back into the Second Division after relegation a year earlier.

Full backs Robertson and Conroy resumed their partnership back in the Third Division under their old boss Dave Russell at Tranmere, and Calder rewarded League newcomers Oxford United with lots of goals after they had lashed out a club-record £8,000 to sign him.

But in terms of life after football, nobody did better than the left-wing pairing of Jackson and Hubbard, who are still in touch with one another, 50 years on.

The deeply religious Jackson became a headmaster in his native East Midlands, while Hubbard – at 80 the oldest surviving member of the team – was awarded the MBE for his work as a PE teacher and community sports development officer back in Ayrshire.