BURY GSOB finally got to play in the LFA Whitbread Amateur Cup but it all went stale in a 6-3 defeat by fellow LAL Premier Division outfit Prairie United.

Howerd Croft's side had appeared to be blessed in this year 's competition. After a bye in the First Round, they played 30 minutes in an abandoned tie at Ainsworth and were granted the game and then went through by default in the next round when Merseyside opponents Crawford were kicked out of the tournament.

With the Round Four tie switched to Bury everything appeared to be going well on Saturday as Ian Riggs opened the scoring. It wasn't to be as the Preston outfit hit back with two quick goals just before the break and around the hour mark went one better with three goals in as many minutes.

Mark Aston and Paul Hagan added to Bury 's tally late on but the damage was already done. The Bury GSOB 4ths went down 1-0 to Rochdale St Clems.

Old Boltonians took over top slot in the Premier Division with the latest three points picked up by Peter Cooper 's young side in a 4-1 home league victory over Accrington Amateurs.

Cooper has put together a side at Tower Street that combines massive potential in young players with one or two quality older heads, who make the whole thing gel.

Saturday 's win displayed all the benefits of this policy. The first goal came right before the break from one of the more experienced players currently revelling in the new challenge, John Fairhurst.

The introduction of young substitute Carl McKendrie by Cooper ignited his side to an electrifying second half performance. His seemingly unstoppable wing play created further goals for Chris O 'Mara, Dave Haslam and an absolute cracker from Ged McGreavey.

"Young Carl tore them apart when he came on," raved Cooper. "We played very well indeed and it's so pleasing to have gone clear at the top."

Sweeper Rowan Crook was named as man of the match. Accrington's goal came in the dying moments and was little more than consolation.

The top of the table clash in Division One saw Radcliffe Amateurs deposed from the leading position and replaced by Saturday's 1-0 victors Little Lever.

A typical rough and tough local derby game was decided early in the second half by Chris William's only goal of the game. Amateurs ' Andy Clayton was red carded late on for retaliation. The man of the match awards went to midfielder Paul Wilkinson for Radcliffe and team skipper and match winner Williams for Little Lever.

The new leaders manager Gary Goulding was understandably delighted with the outcome. "It was a crunch game for us because Radcliffe are a quality side," he said. "Everyone gave their all and we certainly deserved the win. It puts us two points clear with a game in hand."

It's not often a team manager refers to a day on which his team has registered a 2-1 away win as a "disaster" but that was Bury Amateurs team boss Glynn Haslam 's assessment of Saturday 's victory at Tarleton Corinthians.

"We lost two cars carrying six players on the way there," he explains. "One turned up right on kick off but we still had to start with just ten men and that was with Chris Gibbon in goal as our keeper Willy Green was still missing.

"The other car arrived five minutes before the break but Chris had been brilliant in goal so we decided to carry on with him. We then made the substitutions and Tommy Ruddock who was our man of the match twisted his knee. So having started with ten we finished with ten."

Having gone one down Amateurs took all three points with goals from Barry Price and Gareth Jones.