A TRICKY time for journalists at Gigg Lane lately.

Manager Andy Preece and skipper Martyn Forrest are the only people who will speak to the press because of an incident at the Cardiff City match three weeks ago.

A Welsh reporter began asking one of the younger Bury players about Cardiff being "big-time Charlies". Despite the Shakers player doing little more than agreeing, the story (if you can call it that) still managed to find its way into most newspapers in Wales. It caused a lot of fuss and the result is an indefinite ban on speaking to the players.

It is a shame, particularly for us local papers, which Preece and the club have no problems with.

"The local lads to be fair have been positive but it is certain others who have been causing us problems," said Preece. "One national paper phoned me up wanting to do a piece and I agreed with him that it was going to be a positive story.

"When I picked the paper up the next day the first four paragraphs were completely negative. It is typical of what happens."

While it makes it tricky for us to do our job, it is easy to understand why the club has reacted to the problem the way it has.

If less players speak to the press, then the less chance of a verbal slip-up to land them in hot water. And with the amount of young players in the team, they can be sometimes naive in the way they handle the media - newspaper reporters, in particular, will often use players to get the story they want, as apposed to the story they are given.

Perhaps one solution is to have a more media-experienced person on hand when players give interviews. That way, a potentially dangerous situation could be avoided before it even begins.