FOLLOWING the fortunes of Bury FC is a unique and mostly frustrating experience. Like many other hardy souls who shuffle down to Gigg Lane every other week, I have lost count of the number of times friends, family and colleagues have asked me why I bother. I would be lying if I said I hadn’t asked myself the same question over the last 18 years.

Through the humbling home defeats to Dagenham and Redbridge and Hereford United in the depths of winter, the dark days of the Kevin Blackwell era, and the carnage that was last season, I have periodically wondered what life may have been like had my parents taken me to Maine Road or Old Trafford instead of Bury versus Wycombe Wanderers back in 2001. At times, supporting a lower league club can feel like being kicked in the nuts over and over again.

But, it is the good times that keep pulling you back. It is the memories of promotions and cup upsets, the delirium on the terraces after a late winner, and, most importantly, feeling a part of it all.

I am too young to recall the Shakers’ glory days of the mid to late 90s, but I have heard the tales countless times. I have been taught to idolise the likes of Stan Ternent, Dean Kiely and Chris Lucketti, despite being too young to remember their days in a Bury shirt.

Things Can Only Get Better chronicles the journey of that band of brothers as they recovered from an agonising Third Division play-off final defeat and roared to two consecutive promotions, eventually reaching the heady heights of the second tier.

At the time, Bentley was in mid teens, an age when football gets its claws into many a young man. And the book is made all the better by the sprinkling of anecdotes and reflections, which highlight just what a defining period it was in his life.

The release could not be timed any better. As Ryan Lowe's imperious side fly high at the top end of League Two, playing a brand of football not seen at Gigg for many a year, fans have fallen back in love with the club following several years of despair.

Promotion to League One could well be on the cards come May, yet it is still difficult to conceive of a time when the club went toe to toe with the likes of Manchester City, Nottingham Forest and Sunderland.

But that is exactly what Ternent's men did. For a club of Bury's stature, with an average gate of slightly more than 6,000, to compete with such sides was a huge ask, but one both fans and players clearly relished.

Away days at Vicarage Road and Maine Road will never be forgotten by those present, but it is fascinating to read of how much those memories also meant to the players themselves.

As well as the many, many highs, Bentley also documents the inevitable break-up of the team, and the Shakers' tumble back to the four tier.

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Like all good football books, though, Things Can Only Get Better is not just about the beautiful game. As well as detailing the club's meteoric rise, Bentley also explores the social history of the mid-90s, with important cultural events such as the 1996 Manchester Bombing, the death of Princess Diana, and Labour’s 1997 general election win providing the backdrop to the Shakers' success.

Things Will Only Get Better is a must-read for Bury supporters, both young and old. For those, like myself, who were unable to experience that era, it is a taste of what it felt like to be swept along on one of the most special journeys in the club’s history. And for those lucky enough to have been present, it will undoubtedly bring a tidal wave of special memories flooding back.

Bury's mid 90s golden era may have been brief, but the memories, and the hope that another could be just around the corner at any moment, is exactly what keeps us going back, in spite of what others might say.