BACUP Borough won the battle of the Valley – but the price of FA Vase derby defeat was a huge one for Rossendale United manager John Hughes.

Hughes was fired after seeing his men bundled out of the competition by their derby rivals as they lost 2-0 at Dark Lane.

He paid the ultimate price for that loss shortly after the final whistle after 16 months in charge.

Explaining the decision, United chairman Steve Hobson said: “We have given John a fair crack of the whip but unfortun-ately we are not seeing the progress on the field of play we and our supporters demand.

“John has worked tirelessly on behalf of Rossendale United for the past 16 months and, if success was guar-anteed purely on effort alone, we would be a Football League club by now.

“Unfortunately that’s not the case and we feel change is needed.”

That decision took some of the shine away from an accomplished Bacup performance to delight their manager Brent Peters, who was a ball boy at Dark Lane as a youngster.

He is also a former Rossendale manager and his parents live two minutes from the ground – so the win was sweet for Peters.

Bacup flew out of the blocks but couldn’t break through from a midfield battle until skipper Davey Luker finished in style as Lance Ogunyode found him after collecting a long clearance from Jon-Paul Lewis.

Adrian Bellamy had earlier hit the woodwork for the visitors and the interval lead was no less than they deserved.

And it was almost 2-0 shortly after the restart but Martin Campbell in the Dale goal did well to save from Chris Ogunyode.

But the striker was not to be denied on 58 minutes as he fired home to shoot Bacup into the next round.