Port Vale 1 Bury 0 by Steve Canavan

WHEN we stopped in Stoke to ask a young couple directions to the ground, they replied: "Sorry, no idea. We're from Canada".

It set the tone for the day.

As miserable defeats go, this takes some beating. Both sides were truly awful but just when Bury seemed on course to take home a share of the spoils, some sloppy defending allowed Chris Killen to score for Vale and secure all three points.

The Shakers huffed and puffed but, aside from a couple of half chances for Jon Newby, never looked like threatening Mark Goodlad in the Vale goal. This was a terrible match and Preece told his players as much after a 45-minute 'discussion' in the visitors changing room after the match. "We should have at least got a point out of this game," said the manager.

"There was nothing between the sides. It was a scrappy tight affair and it had 0-0 written all over it.

"I thought we had battled hard and ground out a result but you only have to switch off once and it costs you three points."

The way the goal came made defeat even harder for Preece to digest. Bury won a corner on the left, everyone missed it and Vale broke away. Midfielder Stephen Brooker played a beautiful ball through to Killen and the forward - who has scored six goals in seven games since his loan move from Manchester City - coolly side-stepped Paddy Kenny and stroked the ball into an empty net.

"We are so vulnerable from corners," admitted Preece . "We had four or five players back and they had one lad up front but no one took the responsibility to mark him.

"It was our corner. We practice corners in training attacking wise but it looks as though we'll have to take our corner and work on defending them! It defies belief really and we will have to spend a bit of time working on that aspect."

It is hard to write anything about the match itself, a match that the word boring could have been invented for. It was most notable for the number of bookings.

Bury had five men cautioned, including one after 20 seconds (Sam Collins for a lunging tackle) and three inside 13 minutes. One more and the Shakers would have been hit with a mandatory £10,000 fine. The most exciting part of the contest was watching the pigeons roosting in the Main Stand roof. In short, a game to forget.

But at least the Shakers have a chance to put things right quickly. They play Cardiff City on Wednesday at Gigg Lane, kick off 7.45pm, and three points there would go some way towards making amends.

BURY: Kenny 6, Unsworth 5, Stuart 6, Swailes 7, Collins 6, Redmond 6, Reid 6, FORREST 7, Murphy 5, Newby 7, Lawson 6. Subs: Borley (for Reid 59), Clegg (for Murphy 67), Seddon (for Lawson 67), Nelson, Syros. Att: 4,688

Bury bookings: Collins (1 Foul), Unsworth (10 dissent), Redmond (13 foul), Swailes (29 foul), Newby (85 foul) Ref: Roger Furnandiz.