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Bury 1-1 Pilgrims

Coca Cola League

With Tom Bennett and Jason Lee available again following their one match bans, manager Steve Evans had to decide whether to put them back into the starting line-up or to stick with the players who had won comfortably on Saturday against Wycombe. He chose the latter option so the club's top scorer Lee had to start on the subs' bench, allowing on-loan Scottish striker Tam McManus who had yet to score a goal for the Pilgrims in his nine first team appearances, take to the field. Both sides started with good atacking moves. A cross from Austin McCann found Matt O'Halloran at the far post, but he failed to connect with the ball. Then at the other end Nathan Abbey had to save a 20 yard effort from David Nugent. On ten minutes Bury took the lead when defender David CHALLINOR headed home a corner by Brian Barry-Murphy. Bury came close to increasing their lead a few minutes later when a Chris Porter header hit the post. With 28 minutes gone Boston brought on Jason Lee for Tam McManus who had picked up a slight calf strain. Andy Kirk missed a golden opportunity to level the scores when a botched clearance landed at his feet, but he fired over from six yards out. Boston did however equalise on 35 minutes when CHALLINOR headed a cross from Dean West past his own keeper.

Boston started the second half trying hard to pick up their first away win of the season. Mark Greaves headed a David Noble corner wide of the goal. Then David Nugent saw his long range shot go to the right of the goal at the other end. A free kick by Noble found Greaves, but his cross was intercepted by Bury keeper Glyn Garner. With fifteen minutes left Boston brought on Lee Thompson for Matt O'Halloran to try to improve their attacking options. The game ended without much in the way of real chances for either side as both teams seemed happy with the share of the points that left Boston still in seventh place and Bury one point behind them in ninth. After the match manager Steve Evans admitted he was happy with the point but was disappointed that his side had failed to produce a second goal despite dominating the play for long spells. He also confirmed that he was still keen to bring in some new players despite failing in his latest efforts to bring Peterborough striker Leon Constantine to the club on a loan spell.

United team: Nathan Abbey, Lee Beevers, Austin McCann, Dean West, Paul Ellender, Mark Greaves, David Noble, Matt O'Halloran (Lee Thompson 77), Andy Kirk, Tam McManus (Jason Lee 28), Courtney Pitt. Subs not used: Greg Strong, Tom Bennett, Simon Rusk.


Match report copyright © Ken Fox, 2004.