Bradford Park Avenue 0

Vauxhall Motors 1

Avenue whimpered to their most embarrassing defeat of the season in the clash of the bottom two in the Conference North last night.

Merseysiders Vauxhall Motors claimed their first victory in the new division.

The Motormen are still the basement club because before the game they were four points behind Avenue. Now Avenue must lift themselves for a visit to fourth-bottom Stalybridge Celtic on Saturday.

"That is the worst I have seen them play and it is not acceptable," said Shutt. "There wasn't one positive we could take from it. I feel sorry for the supporters who turned up and paid good money to watch a gutless display like that.

"We had a team of cowards out there. No grit no determination and not even any effort from any one of them. They were frightened of being in possession.

"They have let this football club down and they have let me down.

"They have let themselves down but I'm all too used to footballers doing that. It is when they drag me, the club and fans down that I get angry."

Avenue had Dan Sheriffe back in the starting line-up but Gareth Clayton, Michael Naylor and Allan Pearce were only partially fit and had to settle for places on a strong bench.

Striker Steve Oleksewycz was still out through injury but on-loan Stockport County player Phil Reilly made his Avenue debut.

There were half-chances for Avenue in the opening 20 minutes but they did not have a shot on target in the entire game.

Vauxhall soon realised the home side were off the pace and grew in confidence.

They forced a series of corners and in the 35th minute that route provided the match-winner.

Left back Colin Flood's flag kick was half cleared but the ball came back to him and his curling cross was glanced in off the foot of the post by the head of James Olson.

Pearce replaced Karl Colley at the interval but nothing changed.

In the second half, Shutt introduced Clayton for Reilly and brought Craig Smith off the bench for central midfielder Marc Thompson and still there was no improvement or motivation.

In fact the miscontrol, the inability to make a simple pass and the fear of spherical objects soon spread to the players brought on to try to turn the tide.