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Bury 3 Lincoln City 1

Dave Lawrenson
18/ 9/2008

BURY moved up to second spot in the League One table on Saturday and proved themselves to be one of the most dangerous sides from set-pieces in English football.

A fair chunk of Bury’s goals this season have stemmed from devilish corners and free kicks.

But they excelled themselves on that front on Saturday with three of their first four corners leading to goals and the other one resulting in an Andy Bishop header being cleared off the line.

Andy Morrell, Efe Sodje and Bishop were the players on the scoresheet as the Shakers recorded a deserved win against a decent Lincoln side who defeated Barnet 2-0 last time out and Premiership giants Aston Villa in pre-season.

And Bury’s amazing start to the season has now seen them go six league games unbeaten.

Manager Alan Knill, who again named an unchanged side, said: "If we get the delivery, we know we have got people who want to head it. I don’t think there is a person with a better dead-ball delivery in this division than Brian Barry-Murphy.

"But it only happens because he practices and doesn’t take it for granted. You have to work hard at your art to perfect it and Barry-Murphy does that – and so does Michael Jones."

Morrell gave Bury the lead on 30 minutes, smashing the ball into the roof of the net after Bury skipper Paul Scott had knocked down Jones’ corner.

Lincoln equalised via a corner of their own seven minutes later. Jonas Kovacs rose unchallenged to get the first touch on the ball but it went down as a David Buchanan own goal.

As has become the norm at Gigg Lane, Bury did not let the fact that they had conceded a sloppy goal get to them. And they were back in front five minutes into the second half when Sodje leapt like a salmon to power home a Barry-Murphy corner at the far post.

Bury were awarded a penalty on 66 minutes when Scott had his shirt tugged by Ben Wright as he tried to get his head to another Barry-Murphy corner.

Lincoln keeper Rob Burch went the right way but Bishop’s penalty was too far into the bottom corner.

The goal made up for Bishop’s failure to hit the target after pouncing on a Kovacs error to round the keeper early doors.

But it was a game of few chances from open play. Bury defended well, had 59 per cent of the possession and always looked in control of proceedings. And Lincoln were mainly restricted to pot-shots from long range as Bury took their home league record to three wins from three games.

Team: Brown, Scott, Sodje, Futcher, Buchanan, Bennett, Dawson, Barry-Murphy, Jones (Baker, 86mins), Bishop, Morrell (Hurst, 74mins). Subs not used: Cresswell, Racchi, Belford. Goals: Morrell (30mins), Sodje (50mins), Bishop (66mins, pen). Attendance: 2,663.