Bury Town looking to build on Dereham Town victory

Manager Ben Chenery believes his Bury Town side have grown in confidence off the back of their 3-2 home win over Dereham Town and are relishing the challenge of meeting two more rivals for promotion in four days.

Tomorrow sees the Blues head to joint Pitching In Isthmian League North Division table-toppers Aveley (3pm) before the visit of ninth-placed Felixstowe & Walton United for a re-arranged Suffolk derby on Tuesday (7.45pm).

Remaining in 12th place themselves and nine points off the last play-off spot, though now having three games in hand on current occupiers Dereham, they know these are the games they must get a good return of points from.

Manager Chenery is confident they can rise to the challenge though, driven on by the euphoria that broke out at Ram Meadow on Saturday – with Ryan Jolland’s late strike earning a first win in four.

After Toby Hilliard’s early header (12’) gave the Norfolk side the lead, Cemal Ramadan led the fightback with close-range finishes in the 22nd and 61st minutes.

A Shaun Bammant header drew Dereham level 10 minutes later but the Blues collected the three crucial points with Jolland prodding home a cross five minutes from time. He was subsequently shown a second yellow card for his celebrations in front of the visiting manager while the Magpies’ Adam Hipperson was also handed a red card for his reaction in the heated aftermath.

“We’ve had a really difficult time with results,” said Chenery. “We haven’t lost many more than the teams in the top six or seven but we’ve just drawn so many games and that was our main focus, that we need to be turning draws into wins.

“We’ve had a bit of a flat spot, we’re aware of that, we have the ability to re-group and get the hunger back, and they certainly did that.

“It was a real big three points for us against a team that had been doing exceptionally well off.

“This group never know when they’re beaten and hopefully we can get ourselves on a nice run now.”

Both Aveley and Felixstowe have been at the top of the form table over the last six games, taking 16 and 15 points from the possible 18.

But Chenery feels these games can bring the best out of his side.

He said: “They have both been flying but these are the games we need to play really.

“I think this season has been in stark contrast to previous ones in terms of we haven’t done well against the lower teams this year, for whatever reason that may be, such as the counter-attack or whatever we need to look at.

“But we have certainly done better against the teams higher up the league; beating Maldon, a point from Stowmarket, beating Sudbury and Dereham. So we welcome playing teams at the upper end of the league because we need to make sure they don’t pull away from us any further.

“We have to make sure we are fully prepared and I think the squad now has that little bit more confidence.

“The performances have been there in patches and we just need to put complete performances together, and I felt we did that better against Dereham.”

He added: “Aveley will be a tough test, they play their pitch (3G) very well and Felixstowe have been on a fantastic run so they’ll provide us another problem on Tuesday.”

Jolland will miss both games having already had a red card this season while Jake Chambers-Shaw (ankle) is also set to be unavailable.

Meanwhile, Chenery was pleased to see Olly Hughes turn down an approach from lower-league Hadleigh United, believing the 34-year-old still has a lot to offer at their level.