BURY chairman John Smith is hoping to launch a player raid on Manchester City when the Premiership giants land at Gigg Lane next month writes Chris Hall

Links between the neighbouring clubs were reinforced last summer by City's generous donation to the Save Our Shakers 'Buy a Seat' appeal.

Their pre-season friendly then resulted in midfield ace Terry Dunfield joining Bury, first on loan then permanently, in one of their signings of the year.

Now Smith is hoping manager Andy Preece's strengthening relationship with City boss Kevin Keegan will bring more reserve grade Blues to boost Shakers' increasingly threadbare squad.

"He (Keegan) seems to try and help the smaller clubs when he can," he said.

"He let us have Dunfield after last year's friendly and you never know what might come out of this game. There may be one or two more players coming here on loan."

Smith said he wanted to further develop the bond between the clubs to make way for a tide of fringe City players to ply their trade at Bury.

"That's the only way smaller clubs like us can live, by loaning players from bigger clubs," he said.

"We've done well from that in the past, with players like Mike Sheron, Darren Beckford and Gary Flitcroft all playing for us.

"It works for the bigger clubs as well. Kevin is giving his kids a chance of first team football and we are getting quality young players. I think all the big clubs should pair up with smaller ones."