Chorley boss is pleased to see Bury back in rude health ahead of pre-season clash

Andy Preece is relishing the prospect ahead as Chorley prepare to play their first home pre-season friendly on Saturday.

The Magpies welcome Bury to Victory Park (3pm), a match which pits Preece against the club which gave him his first managerial position.

Having joined them as a player in the summer of 1998, he was named as joint manager alongside Steve Redmond in December 1999 before taking sole charge the following summer.

He had three-and-a-half years at the helm, during which time the club entered administration and its very future was put at risk.

Another financial crisis followed, one which resulted in expulsion from the EFL in August 2019, but Preece’s players meet a Bury team which is now firmly on the up.

Now managed by Anthony Johnson, they won the Northern Premier League Division One West title in 2025/26 and are now one division beneath Chorley in the NPL top flight.

Speaking after last weekend’s friendly at Bamber Bridge, Preece said: “(It’s) Great to see Bury on the way back, it’s a scandal what happened to them.

“I’ve been through those times when I was manager, we found a way to survive and keep going - and to see what happened was heartbreaking.

“With Jonno (Johnson) now there and the way they’re going, the momentum they’ve got, I don’t think it’ll be long before we see Bury back where they should be.

“(It was a) Fantastic five years and (I’m) really looking forward to it. It’ll be a good game, it’ll be another test for us.

“It’s probably unlikely that I’ll risk any of the lads who have got knocks, so that’ll be the only concern for me so we’ll have to look at how we handle that.

“I expect it to be a really good, competitive game: big crowd, Bury travel in their numbers, make loads of noise, so (I’m) really looking forward to that.

“It should be a really good spectacle, a good one for our fans to come out.”