BURY coach Billy Ayre is looking forward to reneweing acquaintances with an old pal tomorrow night - though he's worried it could end in months of stick.

Ayres worked with Kidderminster boss Jan Molby at Swansea City when the pair took the Welsh club to the Division Three play-off's before they were unceremoniously dumped when a new consortium bought the club.

Now the pair - who remain good friends - will come face to face again tomorrow when Bury take on Molby's Third Division outfit in the LDV Vans Trophy second round at Gigg.

" It will be nice to see him again. We got on well and I still keep in touch with him and speak to him on a regular basis," said Ayres.

"I'm not concerned about getting one over on him. But it would be nice to beat him because otherwise I'll be getting stick from him for months to come."

Ayres and Molby did a great job at Swansea before getting the push but Ayres holds no grudges. "That's football and these kind of things happen," he says philisophically.

"We were doing well and it was only through circumstances that we had to go.

"But Jan's gone onto Kidderminster and he's put a good team together. They play nice passing football, they are comfortable in possession and it will be a difficult game for us. He's a very emotional person and he'll be looking for a win."

While Molby is enjoying life at Kidderminster, Ayres too is settling nicely into his new role at Gigg Lane and is confident that it doesn't need much tinkering to get the Shakers firing on all cylinders again.

"The nucleus of a good team is there. We just need to put a run of results together," he said.

"It's no disrespect to the strikers already at the club but we need someone to put the goals away because if you don't score it puts pressure on the defenders.

"What we need is a young Mark Carter or a Phil Stant, someone who can nick a goal or two. But there's not a great deal wrong and I'm confident we'll turn the corner."