BURY were thrown into turmoil today when owner Hugh Eaves quit the club. The multi-millionaire has stood down as a director after suffering verbal abuse from supporters after Saturday's 1-0 defeat at Port Vale.

Eaves, who owned the vast majority of shares in the Shakers, has ploughed millions of pounds into the club over the last 12 years, helping to keep them alive and then financing their meteoric rise from the bottom of the Third Division to the middle of the First Division.

But he decided enough was enough after hearing the personal abuse from a section of supporters at the railway station immediately following Saturday's defeat and his resignation was announced at the club's annual general meeting last night. Ironically it was after taking similar verbal abuse at a railway station following an FA Cup defeat at Chorley almost a decade ago that Mr Eaves reduced his massive cash imput into the club.

His actions then sparked the biggest crisis in Gigg Lane's history. All the top players had to be sold to raise £1m and vastly reduce the wage bill and the half the team was filled by part-time players for the next few seasons.

Bury survived and with Mr Eaves' renewed willingness to put his vast riches back into the club, their fortunes quickly turned for the better.

Bury hope there will be no repeat of the crisis of 10 years ago and are optimistic that a decision announced last night to increase the share capital from two and a half million to 10 million will attract new backers.

Mr Eaves will retain his shares but will not add to them. This increase in share capital means that new investors can purchase enough shares to have a bigger stake in the club than Mr Eaves which will be tempting to big money men wanting to have the major say in the running of a football club.

Chairman Terry Robinson said: "We all know what happened after Mr Eaves was harangued at a railway station after the Chorley game and on Saturday a group of people knew he would be at the railway station and harangued him. "He has put a substantial amount of money into this club and he did not deserve this. Unfortunately, you cannot argue with people like this, if they don't understand what is happening in this football club they just want Mr Eaves to put more money in.

"He will still be coming to the games but he wants to distance himself from the responsibility of making the decisions on the running of the club. We are hoping someone else will now come forward. The responsibility of running a club on our attendances is very difficult and for the last 18 months we have been looking for someone else to get involved to share the burden with Mr Eaves.

"With the increase in the share capital from two and a half million to 10 million it means there will be shares available for someone to come in."

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