David Conn: Kenny excels for Blades but former club fume at bargain transfer fee

Bradford Park Avenue demand Football Association investigation into goalkeeper's move from Bury to Sheffield United

Described somewhat cruelly as looking like a pub footballer but playing like a Premiership goalkeeper, Paddy Kenny has been as vital a plank of Sheffield United's remarkable cup runs this season as the pace and midfield assurance of the two Michaels, Brown and Tonge. But Kenny's at times improbable shot-stopping on the way to the Blades' forthcoming FA Cup semi-final against Arsenal or Chelsea have been eyed with mixed emotions at one of his previous clubs, Bradford Park Avenue.

Avenue, the former Football League club who have climbed back from oblivion to the UniBond League Premier Division, originally signed Kenny when he was playing local football in Halifax. He excelled under Avenue's manager Trevor Storton and in September 1998 Bury – manager Neil Warnock – bought him. Avenue's price was £30,000, plus 20 per cent of any profit Bury made when they sold him. Kenny began to throw himself spectacularly around lower division goalmouths for Warnock, and attracted scouts, Premiership managers, and a mooted price-tag of up to £1m.

Bury, whose chairman and chief executive was Terry Robinson, then plunged into crisis when their major shareholder and bankroller, the former stockbroker Hugh Eaves, went missing and his assets worldwide were frozen. Warnock left, joining Sheffield United. Then in January last year, Robinson left to become a football executive, then director of football, at Sheffield United. Shortly afterwards, Bury went into administration, with debts of £4.8m.

In October last year, Sheffield United took Kenny on loan from Bury for three months. At the end of that period, they signed him on a four-year contract. The fee: £42,000. Bradford Park Avenue, who had allowed themselves to contemplate a £200,000 share of a £1m transfer – enough to pay two and a half seasons' wages or help bring their Horsfall Stadium home to Conference standard – received just £2,400. They immediately complained to the Football Association.

"We cannot understand why Bury sold such a valuable player so cheaply, and we were not happy given the close connection between Terry Robinson, Neil Warnock and Bury," said their chairman, Frank Thornton.

In October last year, Thornton wrote to the FA saying he was "extremely disturbed and disappointed at the difference between [Kenny's] reputed transfer market value" and the amount paid by Sheffield United, and asked the governing body to "carry out a full investigation into the whole issue". He argued that the amount paid was too little and that in such circumstances, the FA should set the fee via a tribunal.

For Kenny, Sheffield United, Warnock and Robinson, the move has been splendid business. Kenny has played every match in the First Division, the League Cup, in which the Blades beat Liverpool 2-1 at home in the semi-final before going out 2-0 in the away leg, and the FA Cup, in which they beat Leeds last Saturday to reach the semi-final. They have earned £200,000 from TV in the League Cup, £675,000 in FA Cup prize money and £265,000 for last Saturday's victory over Leeds being televised live by Sky. Added to bumper gates for the glamour ties, they have made up to £2.5m from the cup runs alone, and are challenging for the multi-million pound windfall: promotion to the Premiership.

At Sheffield United, Terry Robinson would only say of the Kenny transfer. "It was just a transaction between two clubs, a transfer deal. It was all above board and we have nothing to justify."

John Smith, Bury's joint chairman, said the club was desperate to reduce its costs and Kenny was being paid £1,700 a week: "There was nothing improper, nothing dodgy, no side deal. They can come and look at our books. That money was a lifeline. Now, looking back, it's a pittance compared to the mega-money he's earned for Sheffield United."

Some Bury fans are bitter, feeling that Warnock and particularly Robinson, took advantage of their old club's financial plight, taking their one star player for a song. Nobody knew Bury's daily struggle more intimately than Robinson; he was a director for 20 years, saw Gigg Lane completely redeveloped and enjoyed a two-season stint in the First Division, 1997-99, while Hugh Eaves lavished money on the club.

But when Eaves' assets and £750,000 loan were frozen in December 1999, Bury's bank withdrew support. Robinson mortgaged Gigg Lane for £1m to a scheme run by a solicitor, Richard Prentis, who was shortly afterwards struck off by the Law Society. The scheme nevertheless moved to repossess the ground, while Robinson cast desperately around for investors. On 29 January 2002, he left Bury, saying a deal was ready to sign with a company called Mansport Developments. The proposed takeover collapsed when two of the men involved with Mansport were revealed to be convicted fraudsters. Shortly afterwards, Robinson took up his post at Sheffield United. His efforts were tainted in the minds of some fans by his having been paid a £53,000 salary, plus car, at the impoverished club – and then by his cut-price swoop for Kenny so soon after he left.

The huge, communal effort to save Bury from liquidation became an inspiration to fans of other stricken clubs and won the club's press officer, Gordon Sorfleet, Uefa's supporter of the year, 2002. The administrator, Matthew Dunham, settled the mortgage debt, and Eaves' £750,000 loan, with other unsecured creditors, was reduced to 10p in the pound. The club was finally bought by a fund-raising committee marshalled by the former commercial director Neville Neville, and 10 per cent of the shares are held by the supporters' trust, Forever Bury, which has a representative, Roger Barlow, on the board.

Money is still tight. Apart from Kenny, none of the other £50,000-plus earning players have left. Bury are offering contracts as short as one month, paying £400 to £500 per week. Kenny's replacement goalkeeper is Glyn Garner, signed from the Welsh League club, Cwmbran. Still, Bury are budgeting to make a loss and scrapping for their lives on gates dropping to under 3,000. "It's going to get worse financially before the bigger contracts clear at the end of next season," Smith said. "It is still a constant struggle."

Bradford Park Avenue's history is a salutary tale for anybody complacent enough to think football clubs do not go out of business and always find a saviour. A Football League club since 1908, Avenue were a First Division club either side of the First World War and boast among their playing alumni Ron Greenwood, Kevin Hector and, most celebratedly, Len Shackleton. But the club's fortunes declined; they were latterly sustained only by Hector's goals until he was signed by Derby in 1966. Avenue then finished bottom of the League three seasons running, until they were ultimately thrown out in 1970. They had been supported financially by a chairman, Herbert Metcalfe, but he died and the club had to sell their Park Avenue ground. They briefly shared Valley Parade with rivals Bradford City, then, in May 1974, with debts of £57,652, they went into liquidation and out of existence.

Theirs is, however, also an inspiring tale of supporters keeping the flame alive. A group of fans used the name and club colours, forming a team which played in the Bradford Amateur Sunday League Fourth Division. Over a decade of Sunday football later, they began to climb the football pyramid. Thornton, a long-time Avenue fan who talks nostalgically of cycling from Bradford to London as a lad in 1948 to watch a cup tie at Arsenal, became involved in 1992. Now owner of an electronics business in Oxford, he has supported the club's rise to the UniBond Premier Division with £150,000.

"A football club," he said, "is its supporters. Many of us couldn't watch another club and had to come back to Bradford Park Avenue." In Kenny they thought they had a sell-on bonanza, like Accrington Stanley, another formed out of the ashes of a former Football League club which went bust. Stanley received £250,000 when their former striker, Brett Ormerod, was sold by Blackpool to Southampton, have signed several quality players with the proceeds, including two from Avenue, and are 10 points clear at the top of the UniBond Premier Division, coasting to the Conference.

Even if an FA investigation were to find nothing wrong with the Kenny deal, Thornton's case is that his club did not receive fair value for a goalkeeper who has earned Sheffield United millions. The response from the FA to his complaint: no reply at all.

davidconn@independent.co.uk