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Rochdale 1 Bury 1

Dave Lawrenson
4/ 9/2008

THE Shakers once again proved themselves to be a hard nut to crack as they avoided a derby day defeat and stayed joint top of the League Two table.

Bury’s outstanding unbeaten start to the season was rewarded by a sizeable contingent of Shakers supporters turning up at Spotland on Saturday.

They provided the players with immense vocal support for what they consider to be the biggest game of the season.

And the Shakers responded with a battling display against a Rochdale side which is widely tipped for promotion having missed out last season via a play-off final defeat to Stockport.

Bury have a superb record at Rochdale having not lost there in 18 years. And Rochdale will have feared the worst when Bury, who fielded the same 11 players that edged out Morecambe 2-1 the previous weekend, benefited from an outrageous own goal for the second successive game.

Brian Barry-Murphy’s set piece deliveries caused Rochdale problems all game, none more so than when his eighth minute corner was bizarrely punched into his own net by goalkeeper Sam Russell as Bury’s giant centre backs Efe Sodje and Ben Futcher looked to pounce.

Russell made amends later in the first half by twice thwarting Bury’s star striker Andy Bishop, getting a strong hand to a thumping low shot from the edge of the box before tipping over another powerful drive in a one-on-one situation.

Russell’s opposition number Wayne Brown was similarly heroic in the second half. And he had to be as Rochdale, who were second best by a distance in the first half, played like men on a mission after the break.

The home side were desperate to save face and their second half dominance was eventually rewarded when Sodje was wrongly adjudged to have upended Will Buckley inside the box. But Brown showed that he doesn’t have the nickname of ‘Superman’ for nothing by flying across to his left to keep out Chris Dagnall’s spot kick.

However, Brown was unable to repeat the trick when a mistimed challenge from Futcher on Buckley presented Rochdale with another penalty on 68 minutes.

Adam Le Fondre blasted the ball straight down the middle of the goal and Buckley came close to winning the game for Rochdale late when his thunderous shot went inches wide of the post.

But, although Rochdale had a few other good chances to score in the second half, Bury defended extremely well in the main as they maintained their impressive record of conceding no more than one goal in their four league games to date.

And they almost scored a winner themselves in the exciting Lancashire derby when Stephen Dawson was narrowly off target with a sweet low strike.

Team: Brown, Scott, Futcher, Sodje, Buchanan, Bennett (Racchi, 78mins), Dawson, Barry-Murphy, Jones, Bishop, Morrell (Baker, 85mins). Subs not used: Cresswell, Hurst, Belford. Goal: Russell (8mins, own goal). Attendance: 5,492.