EX-BURY boss Mike Walsh hasn't lost his affinity with the club he managed for five years.

Walsh returned to the big time this week when Steve McMahon appointed him as his assistant at First Division Swindon Town, 13 months after he was sacked at Gigg Lane.

And he takes special satisfaction from the resounding success his former club has achieved since his ex-number two Stan Ternent took over.

"I'm delighted for them," he says with absolute sincerity.

"I still keep in touch with Stan, Sam Ellis and Cliff Roberts at least once a week and the chairman, Terry Robinson, was one of the first to congratulate me on getting the job at Swindon.

"That's the type of club they are at Bury. They are loyal and don't forget the people they have had there."

Following a three-month stint when he helped out on the coaching side at Scunthorpe United, Walsh landed a plum non-league management job at UniBond Premier Division club Barrow.

His responsibilities included the commercial manager's as well as the team boss' job and who was the first person he went to for advice? - Bury's commercial man Nev Neville.

Walsh enjoyed wall-to-wall success during his six month spell at Barrow whom he left handily placed for promotion to the Vauxhall Conference in second spot.

And despite their vast difference in league standing, Walsh says the targets the fans set at the Cumbria club rival those at Gigg Lane. "I enjoyed every minute of my time there. The fans took to me and I took to them," he recalled.

"You have to experience it to believe the passion they have for the club.

"They call Barrow the longest cul-de-sac in the world and the people have a great pride in the area. We were averaging around 1,500 people at home games and always had more fans than the opposition when we went away.

"The intensity at home games was frightening and I would say that the expectations of the fans exceed those even at Bury. They believe they should be a Football League club and nothing less will do. It's certainly the biggest non-league club I know."

It was an instant culture shock when he took the bench for his first Swindon match in Saturday's local derby with Oxford United.

And the big time doesn't get any bigger than this midweek's trip to Walsh's boyhood heroes Manchester United in the Coca-Cola Cup. "We've just got to go there and enjoy the occasion," he says. "If we do that we will play well and then who knows what will happen?

"I saw Sunderland play there in the same competition and they were desperately unlucky to lose so you've got to be optimistic."

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.