Knill left Gigg Lane to join The Iron in March under a cloud of controversy, with many Bury fans accusing the 47-year-old of abandoning the club’s League Two promotion push.
The Boxing Day clash at Glanford Park was the first time Knill has faced his former employers since the acrimonious departure and the Scunthorpe boss was subjected to a torrent of personal abuse from around 1,000 travelling fans.
Many of the chants made direct references to members of Knill’s family, forcing Bury to take the drastic step of condemning the behaviour of their own supporters.
A statement said: “As a club we accept banter between supporters and former employees of the club, Alan Knill himself expected abuse from Bury fans.
“Alan and the club would agree that most was banter, however, the abuse aimed at Alan’s family was extremely abusive and extremely personal.
“The club wish to disassociate itself from any such chanting and abuse, we would rather our supporters concentrate their efforts on supporting the team.
“There is no room at Gigg Lane or any football ground for the levels of vitriol aimed at Alan Knill and his family on Boxing Day. The club is deeply embarrassed by the abuse aimed at Alan’s family and have duly apologised to Alan and his family.”
The result plunged Scunthorpe into the League One drop-zone, while Bury now sit just four points off the play-offs under new boss Richie Barker.
After the game Knill spoke out against the “disgusting” abuse, which also included references to former Shakers winger Damien Mozika, who now plays under Knill at Glanford Park.
He said: “Some of the stuff was disgusting but I suppose that’s modern society. People in a football crowd can shout what they like, put them on street and it’s a bit different.
“It makes life difficult but you have to accept it, don’t you?” Tweet
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'...the Scunthorpe boss was subjected to a torrent of personal abuse from around 1,000 travelling fans.' I was one of those fans and the VAST MAJORITY of us DID NOT SUBJECT ALAN KNILL TO A TORRENT OF PERSONAL ABUSE. Many Bury supporters are sick and tired of lazy, second hand journalism when it comes to reporting 'incidents' like this. I agree there was some personal abuse aimed at our former manager by a TINY MINORITY of fans, which was totally out of order. I suggest you either send someone to attend matches and/or read our message board from time to time. I used to be a researcher myself, it really isn't that difficult you know.
If you ask me Alan Knill probably deserved some stick from the Shaker's fans but not to the level of having personal chanting and disrespectful comments made by some louts in the crowd..I for one was of the opinion that he left us in the lurch by walking out on our club last spring.However it has now been proved right that Richie Barker is a far superior manager who is not affraid to adopt new ideas and gets 100% from his players.
It's sad that we on the one hand feel sorry for a manager when he loses his job yet we as fans have to also stomach the lack of loyalty from a man who benefited from being our boss.I notice that Brassey is now doing all of the press conferences on the Scunthorpe site ie The Scunthorpe Telegraph,enough said.