Seddon and Cliffe sink the Shakers

RAMSBOTTOM UTD ... 2 BURY X1 ........................ 1 RAMSBOTTOM United continued with their preparations for the start of the 2016/2017 season with two wins in warm-up games against a Bury XI and then Prestwich Heys who were promoted into the North West Counties League at the end of last season.

It will be surprising if the 11 that started the game against a young Bury team do not form the nucleus of the team that runs out in the opening league fixture against Nelson and if anything like the pulsating performance that they gave for the first hour of the match can be reproduced consistently the Rams are going to be a handful for any team in the division.

Gareth Seddon, Jay Hart and Darren Green combined with ruthless efficiency to run the Bury defence ragged in a first half of blistering forward play which could easily have seen the Rams go into the break five or six up if not for the intervention of the woodwork twice and the agility of the Bury goalkeeper who made up for a lack of inches with spring heeled leaps and dives to thwart attack after attack.

As it was the Rams had to settle for just the two goals – the first from Gareth Seddon, who stole onto a diagonal pass fron Daz Green to fire across the face of the goal and into the bottom corner, and the second from Jale Cliffe who ghosted onto a sweet cross from Nat Taylor to head home via a slight deflection

Bury enjoyed much more possession as the second half progressed. Bury grabbed a goal back from a firm downward header with what was virtually their only clear effort on goal the whole evening.