THE Shakers head for East Anglia for the second time in a week hoping that tomorrow's (Sat Nov 1) clash against Norwich City will be more profitable than last week's excursion.

A disastrous last eleven minutes at Ipswich last Saturday (Oct 25) saw them concede a controversial penalty and end up reduced to nine men when Ian Hughes and Andy Gray received their marching orders.

Both will figure in tomorrow's action but manager Stan Ternent must wait on defender Gordon Armstrong (achilles) and striker Ronnie Jepson (thigh) after they each came through 45 minutes of Wednesday's 1-1 reserve draw against Chester City.

Ternent has extended the loan spell of Wigan Athletic left back Steve Morgan for another month and he too faces a late fitness test to see if he makes the trip.

The Shakers chief has reacted angrily to a report in the Daily Mirror that Bury's players were in uproar at having to foot the £500 bill for last Saturday's overnight stay at Ipswich.

"To say that the club make the players pay for their own hotel bill is completely wrong, and is unfair on the chairman who does very well for us," he said.

"At the start of the season we sit down and mark off which matches we will be staying overnight at. Portsmouth is one, as is Norwich City who we play this weekend but Ipswich wasn't.

"The lads approached me and said they wanted to stop and we agreed to pay for it out of the players' pool which is money collected from fines over the season.

"I don't know what the big deal is, they'd do the same if they wanted to go to Blackpool for the weekend." he added.

Ternent also branded as "rubbish" later reports that PFA chairman Gordon Taylor was called in as a peacemaker in the dispute.

One thing the Shakers boss could confirm was that his charges will have a tough time at Carrow Road despite the fact that the Canaries, who now boast TV cookery queen Delia Smith on their board, have made an indifferent start to the season.

They currently lie one place below the Shakers, level on fifteen points from thirteen games.

Scoring has been a problem for them with only one goal in their last four matches however it is expected they will be boosted by the return from injury of England Under-21 international Darren Eadie who was last season's leading scorer with 17.

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