April 2008 Archives

"HOLD on tight folks" for the Chester City rollercoaster was back in town on Tuesday, and what an exhilarating ride it was!

I couldn't make the game (with recent trips to Shrewsbury, Wycombe and Hereford behind me, don't call me a part-timer), and spent a very nervous 90 minutes listening out for my bleeping mobile in the unlikely surroundings of a Gordon Ramsey pub in Chiswick.

It's too long a story to tell you why I was there, but suffice to say that my stomach was way too knotted to even think about trying a portion of Ramsey's £11 quiche, coupled with spuds at £2.50 a pop.

The Chiswick-ites may have assumed my phone was tuned into the Man Utd v Barca game - how wrong they were! I was so relieved there was no peep from my phone in the first half as it meant we were 45 minutes nearer the vital point needed to secure our League Two status.

Then a half-time call from my source at the ground told me we were playing well and Stockport had already used all three substitutes. It was sounding good, but this is Chester and I've been following them too long to know what could happen.

So another 45 minutes followed and as I saw two nearby tables order bottles of bubbly, I wondered if they were closet Chester fans as well, with a better hotline to the Deva.

I kept looking nervously at my watch, then at my phone. Finally my hotline rang - and all I could hear on the other end was raucous cheering. No words were spoken, or if they were, I couldn't hear them. Those cheers were enough to tell me - "The Blues are staying up!"

I'LL have to admit to dancing a little jig of delight in my living room the moment I heard our friends across the border had been relegated. It was my football highlight of the week - actually, I'm sad enough to own up to it being the highlight of my non-footballing week as well.

It was a shame I couldn't crack open the champagne for a full-on celebration, though, as that will remain on ice until Chester's status in the Football League for next season has been secured.

For 75 minutes of the game at Wycombe, I thought we were going to get a valuable point towards guaranteed safety as our young guns battled against a Chairboys side aiming for a play-off spot. But Wycombe's Scott McGleish put paid to those ideas with his 26th goal of the season.

But it was an encouraging performance and it was see good to see some other southern-based supporters watching only our fifth home counties game this season. Judging by some of the over-enthusiastic chanting, a number had clearly been making the most of their day out.

Oh yes, and it was also a "Celtic Day" at Wycombe - not that you'd really have noticed. Wycombe's invitation to Celtic fans to pay a visit to Adams Park fell a bit flat with no more than 20 Scots in green-and-white hoops behind the goal. Still, one of them insisted on buying me a pre-match drink and I thought our 'exile' to the corner of one of the Adams Park home stands did us a bit of a favour by concentrating our support.

Now we face a nail-biting trip to Shrewsbury. I just hope I'm opening that bubbly when I return south on Saturday night, so the final home games of the season will be time to party.

WE may be having April showers right now, but down at the Deva Stadium it never rains but it pours!

Last week I was leaping around my lounge (knocking a cup of tea flying in the process) as "Goal! Ellison (90mins)" flashed up on Sky's Gillette Soccer Saturday. The Blues are staying up, the Blues are staying up! I was in ecstasy! On Saturday, I stared open mouthed as we let in two very poor goals against a mid-table, mediocre Lincoln City side and once again the spectre of relegation hangs over us. Then, if things were not bad enough, and praying that Butler and Partridge will be fit enough to play at Wycombe on Saturday, the club suddenly announces that Butler and Dinning, two of our most experienced players, have been suspended - only for the PFA to deny they had been suspended two days later.

What is going on? Is this why Stephen Vaughan appointed Simon Davies as manager - because by Saturday we will have practically the whole of the youth team turning out anyway!!!
While I confess that I do not know the reasons for the apparent problems with Butler and Dinning, it made me consider the loyalty that there is in football these days. When I started supporting Chester as wee school girl, it was quite normal for players to either have come from the local area (and how me and my friends loved to stalk them in Woollies!!!) or they would move to Chester lock stock and barrel for a few years (if they were good enough).

Nowadays, how many players stay for more than one or two seasons with the same club and it seems the norm for players to travel hundreds of miles each day to training. I understand this has a lot to do with the high cost of housing, schools and the stability of managers, but you do wonder how good all this chopping and changing is for a team each season and how loyal players really are to the cause, as in our case, of avoiding relegation. Yes they do have pride and won't want to be part of a relegation side, but come the end of the season/their contract they can be off never to fight the Chester cause again! Meanwhile, we the loyal fans can only stand and stare as more shenanigans unfold. We will still drive hundreds of miles and spend hundreds of pounds just to support our beloved Blues, all in the hope of getting another vital three points. Which is why we feel so let down and hurt sometimes by those that we worship and adore each week. It is a cruel game.

IF we could all have looked into the future, there'd have been far more than 190 Blues fans at Edgar Street on Saturday. But I was one of those lucky few and I felt I deserved the treat of two City goals in a great second half comeback.

It capped a good week for the Exiles, as less than 48 hours earlier the Exiles darts team had beaten their Southampton-supporting opponents 6-5 in a nail-biting match in our aptly named 'home' pub, The City Retreat, in London.

I was still on a high from that victory when I crossed the Severn Bridge on Saturday afternoon - but was expecting to be bought down to earth with City facing highly-placed Hereford.

How wrong I was! Admittedly it was a lacklustre first half, but the City fans were in fighting spirit - making their views known to the linesman for forgetting his flag existed when Hereford scored both their goals.
Then Kevin Sandwidth's 25-yard second half stunning goal put us in good voice again. The ref's assistant came in for more stick when the Hereford tannoy man announced their man-of-the-match... "the linesman", bellowed a nearby Blues fan.

Justice was finally done when 'Super Kev' Ellison blasted a 93rd minute penalty past hapless Wayne Brown. So I was back on that high again and almost flew back home over the bridge. Now, if only I could bottle that feeling...

AS an Exile it's often difficult to get to games, but in the age of the internet it's possible to get something resembling your Chester City matchday 'fix' from the comfort of your living room.

Last Saturday's buzz began for me at 2.45pm. While many of you were finding a good 'spec' at the Deva, I was at home surfing a series of websites to find the team news. Would Ellison and Holroyd be fit, would Vaughan be back in the side? My questions were soon answered and I sat back, with about six favourite websites minimised, and waited for the action to start.

If you spend a matchday afternoon online, you'll soon find there's a whole community of exiled football fans out there, desperate to talk about the live action. This Saturday was no different and before long there were more 100 of us in a thread talking about City v Stockport.

The best of the fellow internet chatters have a friend at the game ringing them from a mobile, but it wasn't until half-time that the internet community picked up on the problem with overcrowding in the Stockport end. The score was 0-0, but from the updates we were getting it sounded like it was a game we'd be sorry to have missed.

But wait - someone had a vital call from the Deva... the game had been abandoned due to the pitch being waterlogged! My head almost hit the keyboard in shock and before long the thread was busy and getting busier as City fans returned from the game and logged on.

The first serious report came from the shiny-new Chronicle website (honest), when the afternoon's chaos became a little clearer. You can't beat being at the game for a matchday experience, but when you're hundreds of miles away you can still get a taste of the action with a click of your mouse.