At last! Time to crack open that bubbly...

"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!"