VICTORIOUS Bury captain Karl Belston says a weight was lifted from his shoulders when his young side's place in the Premier League was confirmed at the end of a dramatic final day.

The Radcliffe Road men went into their relegation battle against fellow strugglers Edgworth knowing they not only had to win, but results elsewhere had to go in their favour.

They started in the fourth and final relegation place, one point behind fifth-bottom Unsworth and safety, while third-bottom Greenmount were also in the mix, waiting to pounce should either side slip up.

As it happened, all three teams managed to win their final game.

Greenmount's victory by 18 runs at third-placed Clifton proved too little too late, while Unsworth fell agonisingly short of earning the bonus-point win they needed to secure their safety.

Chris Williams' men managed to bowl out Denton St Lawrence for 102 in reply to their lowly total of 118, but they would have needed to knock them over for 88 to clinch maximum points.

That left the door open for Bury and Belston's young side barged their way through it, hitting 182-7 then bowling out Edgworth for just 57.

They drew level on 49 points with Unsworth but moved above them and out of the bottom four for the first time since the start of the season on games won – seven to Unsworth's six.

"I was so nervous going into the final day that my main emotion was relief once the Unsworth result had been confirmed, it was such a huge weight off my shoulders," said the 31-year-old Bury skipper, who only took over at the start of the season after his brother, Simon, stepped down following his decision to emigrate to Australia.

"Simon was actually following it on CricHQ and was the first person to call it on social media that we were safe after Denton St Lawrence passed 90.

"We were still not completely sure when we were walking off the pitch that we had done it, but it was a great celebration once it was all confirmed.

"For me, it was really satisfying to prove everybody wrong.

"No-one gave us a chance of survival, we were everyone's favourites to go down from the start of the season, but I never stopped believing."

Belston admits he was left scratching his head at the turnaround in his side's fortunes that led to them winning three of their last four matches, especially after going into that run on the back of one win from their previous 10.

His only answer is the injection of youth and the impact of West Indian all-rounder Casmond Walters.

"When we suddenly started playing like this you wondered where we had been all season," he said.

"I can't say exactly what clicked, but we took 17 points out of our last 18, beating the champions in our penultimate match.

"We also gained two bonus points from our last two games – doubling our tally for the rest of the season.

"Casmond has been a big player for us since we brought him in, and a big character in the dressing room.

"But the real thing for me is that we turned to our juniors at the end there and their spirit saw us through.

"We had four teenagers from the club's under-19s in the side on the final day – Jordan Belston, aged 19, Sam Nolan-Massey, aged 17, our under-19s captain Mukhtar Nasir and 16-year-old opener Ghalib Sarosh.

"Undoubtedly, we need to strengthen but our young players have gained great experience from this.

"Even the elder statesmen, like myself and Neil Tong, are only in our early 30s, so I would love to see this team grow and stay together for the next 10 years."