Bury 0, Stoke City 0

music lover Chris Kamara was left singing the blues by off-key Bury.

The new Stoke boss revealed his secret weapon to beat the drop is a dressing room ghetto blaster.

But he is about as impressed by his players' preferred style of music as he is by the Shakers' style of play.

"I've brought in the music to boost morale, although I think what the players listen to is rubbish," said Kamara, who was equally as charitable towards what Stan Ternent's men had to offer as their follow up to Saturday's dream victory at Maine Road.

"Bury battle hard but as a footballing side there was only one team out there," he added. "We were head and shoulders above them but we paid for hitting the post when we should have got the goal which would have deservedly won us the game.

"The trouble is, unlucky teams go down and good teams stay up."

Ternent echoed: "Stoke were the better side and it was a point gained for us.

"It was probably the worst performance I can remember from a Bury side. We were second best in every department and we must improve on that."

Bury were not helped by Tony Ellis's absence with a hamstring injury and their fluency was further hampered by Lenny Johnrose limping off after 13 minutes with a similar complaint.

But they are nothing if not resilient and, despite the off night, took their recent improved run to four games unbeaten, including three clean sheets.

They could easily have taken all three points had Justin Whittle not got in the way of Gordon Armstrong's close range header on the line three minutes from time.

Mark Patterson also wasted a glorious chance with all the time in the world to steady himself, although the eight-yard chance fell onto his wrong foot while Chris Lucketti was denied by a superb reflex save from Carl Muggleton in the first attack of the game.

"I probably headed it too well," rued the Bury skipper. "If I had not timed it quite so well, and the ball had gone anywhere but where it did, it would have been a goal."

A Bury victory would, however, have been an injustice. They had Dean Kiely to thank for a crucial one-on-one save to thwart Graham Kavanagh. And they had to ride their luck when Dean Crowe shot against the post. FORM GUIDE: Kiely 7, Woodward 7, Butler 7, LUCKETTI 8, Small 7, Daws 6, Johnrose 6, Armstrong 6, Patterson 6, Battersby 5, Jemson 5. Subs: Swan 5 (for Johnrose 13 mins), Rigby 6 (for Battersby 49 mins), and Matthews (for Jemson 84 mins).

Att: 5,802.

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