RICHARD Hinds may have accepted his place in the Gigg Lane pecking order – but that does not mean he has to like it.

The 33-year-old central defender was recalled to the Bury starting line-up for the defeat at Fleetwood Town after losing his place to new signing William Edjenguele for the last three league matches.

But he later revealed manager Kevin Blackwell has made it clear Edjenguele, aged 26, and his former Coventry team-mate Nathan Cameron, aged 21, remain his number one pairing.

Hinds only returned because on-loan right-back Shaun Beeley was unable to play against his parent club, but the experienced pro, who has won promotion at Hull, Scunthorpe and Yeovil, is not about to give the first-choice defenders an easy ride.

“(Kevin Blackwell) has got two there he thinks can make the grade at an even higher level,” explained Hinds.

“He has played them in the last few games and that’s the manager’s decision.

“All I can do is try my best and put something in his mind to say ‘I’m here, play me’. I want to put myself forward to say ‘I think I am the best player’, otherwise I wouldn’t be in this game.

“It is my job to keeping knocking on the door and pushing those two.

“If they are the future of the club then let’s push them along and see what they are made of.”

Luckily for Blackwell, Hinds is not prone to sulking, but he knows how to win an argument – and promotion, for that matter. He earned a first class law degree from the Open University in 2011 in preparation for life outside of football.

But, after helping Yeovil Town to claim their first ever promotion to the Championship last season, he wants to scale those heights again with Bury before hanging up his boots.

And, according to Hinds, despite the Shakers sitting 17th in the League Two table after four defeats from their first seven games, all the signs are there to say they can achieve that.

“We are so close and it is so frustrating, but we have got a good bunch of players and I’m sure things will come right,” he said.

“It is a long old season but we have already played Oxford, Chesterfield and Fleetwood, who are all title contenders, and even Burton, who were in the play-offs last year, and we have more than matched them.

“There are a lot of positive signs to come out of our early season games but we have got to draw a line under it now and start getting some results as you don’t want the gap to get too big.

“But anything is possible in this league when there are four promotion places.”