BURY Football Club is being forced to wind down its youth set-up as a cost cutting measure writes Phil Thorp

The controversial decision highlights the crippling financial constraints the Shakers are working under 12 months into a four year creditors voluntary agreement that brought the club out of administration.

The net cost of the youth development scheme during the 2002/2003 campaign was more than £200,000 and the Shakers board have reluctantly come to the decision that it can no longer be afforded.

Vital grant funding for the youth set-up from Sport England is still owed from the season just ended, a fact that is not helping a close season cash flow problem, and money for next season cannot be taken for granted.

Also, the club were to be expected to improve its facilities next year as a condition of the grant - a further expense that would bring additional financial pressures.

The decision, which will take two years due to young players currently contracted, follows hard on the heels of the announcement to scrap the reserve team next season.

And it's bound to be an unpopular one with the club's fans who have always enjoyed watching home grown talent come through the ranks.

In over the last few years current first teamers Danny Swailes, Matty Barrass, Martyn Forrest, David Nugent, Paul O'Shaughnessy and Lee Connell have all forced their way into the first team from the youth set-up.

However, the market for players football world is changing rapidly and the £200,000 fee picked up from home grown Chris Armstrong's transfer to Oldham could well be one of the last.

It's understandable then that there is a school of thought in the game that believes it is folly to invest in your own youngsters when talented players can be picked up when discarded by one of the six north-west Premiership clubs.