BURY FC's highly sought after 'Live The Dream' auction has ironically been won by a Sale Sharks fan!

As talks continue with Sharks owner Brian Kennedy to bring his money-spinning rugby union outfit to Gigg Lane, Shakers have awarded a place in their first team squad to Sale supporter Ian Mills.

His bid of £2,850 was enough to clinch the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity but it will not be Mills who dons the new-look Bury shirt to join Andy Preece and co for training.

He will instead pass on the prize to his two sons Gordon, 12, and Stephen, 15, who will spend the entire 2002-03 season with the youth and senior teams respectively.

They will be officially unveiled at a press conference with Preece later this week before joining the players for training, autograph sessions and on the official team photograph.

Other fringe benefits include free entry to every home game, free shirt with name and squad number on the back and the experience of being transfer listed at the end of the season.

Auction organiser Gordon Sorfleet said: "It's really spooky that they are Sale Sharks fans but they are two great lads who are keen as mustard to get a lot out of the experience," he said.

"They have given up a seven-week holiday in Spain for this and Gordon is particularly keen to eventually make his way into professional football."

The announcement comes as a relief to Bury, whose fundraising efforts were thrown into chaos when a string of hoaxers almost forced the auction to be re-launched from scratch.

Shakers, who only narrowly avoided going bust a month ago, were hoping to ease their financial plight with a winning bid of £7,000. But when it came to collecting the money, Bury were horrified to find that pranksters had made false bids to push up the price.

"It has been an absolute nightmare," said Sorfleet.

"I've put a mountain of hard work into setting this auction up and the whole thing was nearly brought to its knees by a bunch of idiots putting stupid fake bids in.

"There was one genuine bid of £6,000 but, once someone bid higher than that, he decided to spend his money on a trip to the World Cup. When he came back, I rang to tell him he had won but he said he had no money left and had to withdraw."