GREENMOUNT is the first team to qualify for finals day of the Bury Times Millennium Challenge football tournament.

But Higher Lane can count themselves desperately unfortunate not to have moved on to the higher plane!

In a bid to promote attacking soccer, competition rules state that the team scoring most goals over two games goes through.

Greenmount won one game and lost one, scoring a total of four goals. Higher Lane played two and won two - including a victory over Greenmount - but were still frozen out, scoring only two goals in total.

Higher Lane also kept two clean sheets. Unlucky, but Greenmount were last on and knew they had to hit the back of the net big style to go through! All junior schools in the Bury borough have been invited to enter mixed seven-a-side teams. Games will be played before Bury matches at Gigg Lane, and at half-time.

Games are played on a small section of the pitch with matches lasting seven minutes without a break. The competition will progress throughout the season to a Finals Fun Day at Gigg Lane in May.

The Shakers have offered schoolchildren and their parents free entry to Gigg Lane on their team's big day to cheer on the players in tournament action and to support Bury in their Division Two main event as well.

Results from Saturday:

Before the game:

Higher Lane 1 Greenmount 0

St Joseph's & St Bede's 0 Our Lady of Lourdes 0

Half time:

Higher Lane 1 St Joseph's and St Bede's 0

Greenmount 4 Our Lady of Lourdes 0.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.