Bury 1Hull City 0 by Chris Hall: THEIR Christmas report card may read "could do better" but Bury have finally established themselves as genuine contenders for automatic promotion.

A slender one-goal winning margin against the painfully negative and toothless Tigers handed Shakers a much-needed first success from their four festive fixtures and rocketed them into the top three for the first time.

Draws with Rochdale and Kidderminster, together with the defeat at Shrewsbury, had made pretty bleak mid-winter viewing.

But the reward for their consistently brave and determined displays is the chance to glance over their shoulders at the chasing pack, not to mention a renewed self-belief which had manager Andy Preece brimming with optimism.

He said: "The results haven't all gone our way but, if you look at the table now, I think the Christmas period has been fantastic for us.

"If you had told any of the fans we could be in third after new year, they would have been delighted with that. I can't be disappointed with the performances against Rochdale and Kidderminster. We dominated those games.

"So we could have picked up more points but, in the end, we are third. It has taken us a long time to get here but we've done it and now we have to set our goals even higher."

The bad luck which has blighted Bury since their fortunate win at Scunthorpe seemed to have re-surfaced at the end of a moribund first half when David Nugent, making his first league start of the season, hassled City skipper Justin Whittle into losing possession and was bundled over inside the box for his efforts, only for referee and linesman to wave away a cast iron penalty.

Despite continuing to provide an often devastating attacking outlet, it was not to be Nugent's day - a fact emphasised by his clean header from six yards early in the second half, which bounced off the ground at such a force that it flew back up and over the bar.

Instead, the headlines belonged to the forgotten man of Shakers' strikeforce this season, Ian Lawson.

Injuries, combined with the form of Preece, Nugent, Jon Newby and the departed Pawel Abbott, have forced him to kick his heels on the bench for most of the campaign.

In the first period, he came a whisker away from meeting a searching Lee Unsworth cross with a fierce goalbound volley and seconds later stabbed another shot inches wide at the near post.

His workrate seemed to double after the interval, meaning so too did that of Hull goalkeeper Paul Musselwhite, who rescued his side from a heavier defeat on several occasions.

But there was little he could do to halt Lawson's simple but expertly placed header from Chris Billy's perfectly-weighted free-kick on 71 minutes, which handed the home side a deserved victory from a game they had in their pocket from the first whistle.

Form guide: Bury - Garner 7, Nelson 7, Swailes 7, Redmond 8, Unsworth 7, Woodthorpe 8, Billy 8, Nugent 7, Newby 8, Lawson 8. Subs: O'Shaughnessy (for Clegg 81) 6. Not used: Preece, Stuart, George, Whaley. Attendance: 4,290

Referee: Phil Prosser (Albrighton)