Stoke City 3, Bury 2 STAN Ternent's sniffley Shakers spent most of the week successfully avoiding a flu virus - then caught a cold in nine second half minutes.

That's how long it took Stoke to rack up three goals and destroy the Bury manager's proud record of never having presided over two successive league defeats.

After watching Portuguese striker Jose Andrade score in the 63rd minute of his debut, Ternent had to sit and suffer as Richard Forsyth (69 minutes) and Peter Thorne (72) piled on the misery.

And although Bury twice gave themselves hope through veterans Peter Swan (70 minutes) and Andy Gray (85) the Gigg Lane chief was far from happy as he returned to a familiar post-match theme.

"I had no problems with the first goal but the second and third were self inflicted," he moaned.

"Dean Kiely, Chris Lucketti and Andy Woodward all take a share of the blame for those two goals. We have got to learn quickly not to make so many mistakes. You can't get away with them at this higher level.

"We are still in a learning process and we will get better," he predicted. "The difference between winning and losing - success and failure - is very slim. We are going to work hard to make sure we get up the league table."

Ternent could, however, have few complaints about the result as the Shakers were on the back foot from the word go on their first visit to the town's £15m Britannia stadium.

Andrade hit the bar with a 10th minute drive and after Kiely had pulled off a magnificent save from a Graham Kavanagh howitzer, Kevin Kean hit the post with a header.

The Shakers were run ragged down the right flank in that opening spell and the imminent arrival from Brighton of left-sided Jason Peake will hopefully plug what is becoming a problem area. Bury don't, though, lack for courage under fire and emergency defender Nick Daws was outstanding when City's bombardment was at it's height. The goals came at a time when it appeared Stoke might have run out of steam, but Andrade had other ideas, converting from 15 yards after a dummy by Kean on the edge of the box.

The second came six minutes later when Kiely could only palm down Kean's right flank corner and Forsyth reacted quicker than a posse of defenders to clip the ball into an unguarded net.

Swan slotted his fourth of the season when England under 19 full-back Andrew Griffin fluffed a back pass, but hope disappeared within three minutes when Thorne lashed a volley into Kiely's top left hand corner.

There was time for Gray to score his first league goal for the Shakers from an 85th minute penalty after David Johnson had been tripped but Bury were well beaten and now have not won in six outings.

"We are not worried," insisted Ternent. "I am happy with the players, they are giving me everything in terms of effort and commitment.

"We'll be on the training ground working hard all week and we'll be ready to give it another real go at Swindon next Saturday."

FORM GUIDE: Kiely 7, Hughes 6 (Woodward 66 minutes), Morgan 6, DAWS 8, Lucketti 7, Butler 7, Gray 7, Johnson 6, Swan 7, Johnrose 6, Battersby 6 (Randall, 51 minutes, 6). Sub not used: Linighan.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.