September 2009 Archives

I do enjoy a dose of Tuesday night football - what passion, commitment and desire to win I saw a couple of nights ago.

Sorry to disappoint you, but I wasn't at the Deva - but watching Leatherhead v Lewes in a replay of the FA Cup's 2nd qualifying round.

My build-up to City's first ever game against Salisbury went far too swimmingly. For about the first time ever, both the M25 and M3 were totally devoid of traffic enabling me to spot the spire of Salisbury on the approach to the city with nearly three hours to spare before kick-off.

I decided to pay an early visit to the ground, via the twistiest of roads complete with thatched cottages, roses and ducks. The memorably-named (not) Raymond McEnhill Stadium has to be THE most isolated ground in the BSP and above.

Well in two days time the rivalry between Chester & Wrexham is once again stepped up, as we lock horns at the Racecourse Ground at high noon, yet again, shifted from it's original saturday spot as the Police still decide that a crowd an eighth the size of those that attend Chester Races is too much to deal with on a Saturday.

Police forces across the country have to (and do) deal with larger events without fuss on it's originally scheduled date, in football, Leeds played Millwall on a Friday night & Saturday afternoon last year, so our rivalry doesn't even come close in terms of numbers, yet it's one of the first games to be shifted from the Saturday afternoon, and of course we are never going to see another evening game between the two - god forbid!

We all know that any trouble seems to happen in the town or city centres, depending on where the game is taking place, and very little trouble, if any, seems to happen at the ground these days, so I feel they should be able to stage it on a Saturday again.

Back to the game, and a lot of Chester fans I've spoken to are so disheartened with everything going on at the club, that they are avoiding the game on Sunday, mainly as they don't want to see the Blues get beat.

Personally I don't agree with this opinion, for me, it's Chester v Wrexham and any game as such should not be missed, yes we may lose, we probably won't win, but not going to the derby game just 12 miles away is like just turning your back on your family when they need you most, it's not the players fault what's going on at the club, in fact strong rumours suggest that they are not getting paid, so they need all the support they can get right now.

For those that are going, let's give the lads lots of support on Sunday, and evoke some of the spirit of '95, where we famously we went into the game at the foot of the table, and up against it being 2-1 down at half time with only 9 men on the pitch, compared to the Goats' 11, and yet the lads held firm and up popped Sir Andy Milner to level things up right at the end to send us Blues delirious and home very happy, especially after their fans had been celebrating like mad, just as a linesman's flag was busy waving for a foul on Dave Felgate by Gary Bennett as he bundled the ball into Chester's net for what he (and the red sh...ower) thought was a winning goal that night.

It's amazing how many games between the two sides end 2-1 or 2-2, not sure whether you should put your money on one of those results this time round, but you never know, where's Derek Asamoah when you need him?

It's a crying shame that we never had Daryl Clare in our team when facing "those from up the road" how I'd have loved him to stick one in the Racecourse net in a derby, although he did score a belter against them for Rushden & Diamonds a couple of years ago, so that will have to do I suppose!

Speaking of Daryl Clare, he is one of the ex-players that has been invited to the Chester Legends night, whether he'll accept remains to be seen, but it would certainly be great to see him again for the event.

The event, being organized by City Fans United, is set to take place on Thursday 3rd December, and should not be confused with the other event taking place on November 7th, and a whole host of ex-players have been invited, hopefully they'll be able to attend.

As far as City Fans United is concerned, well things are progressing well, and we are close to our official launch, which will be on October 22nd, at the Deva Show Bar, where we will reveal a number of initiatives to help protect & safeguard professional football in the City of Chester, as well as looking to create a "warchest" for eventual ownership of the club.

It's exciting times for CFU, admittedly in difficult times for City supporters, but we are aiming to make a positive difference and fight to keep Chester City Football Club alive.

Letters have gone out to those who indicated their interest in joining CFU in the August fans meeting at the Deva Show Bar, this so we can keep in touch with those that didn't include their e-mail addresses on the form, so if you're one of those, a letter should be dropping through your door shortly, as long as Royal Mail don't go on strike again!

Anyway, that's it for this week, hopefully I'll be typing the next blog telling everyone how great we played in a majestic win for the Blues at the Goats on Sunday....hey I can dream!

Spirit of '95 boys - Come on City!!!!

As current Chair of Chester City Supporters Trust, my main objective whilst in the role is to see the introduction of a single fans group at our football club.

The Trust made it one of their objectives at recent Special and Annual General Meetings and, strangely enough, it's the fans' great disappointment and sense of loss following relegation out of the league which looks like making it happen!

Although it may be hard to believe, there were seven Chester fans gathered in the corner of an upmarket pub in the Pimlico area of London on Wednesday night. The landlord couldn't believe his ears when I told him we were all Chester supporters - I don't think he'd ever come across one before, never mind a Magnificent Seven!

But, as I'd gone nearly a month without seeing the team play, it was great for me to get my Chester City fix by talking to some fellow sufferers.

Last week in my blog I was talking about Derren Brown predicting the lottery balls that came up in the draw the previous Wednesday evening.

Well having thought about it, and listening to his explanation as to how he did it, he revealed that a group of 24 people were actually behind the prediction, so this got me thinking - how can we help Chester City get a second win in a row for the first time in over 90 games?

Simple when you know how... back the team!!!

Too many people were heard having a moan at last Tuesday's match against Gateshead, and yet we won the game, some were even having right go after we had gone 2-1 in front - what the hell is that all about?

It was tragic to hear that certain areas of the crowd were shouting for Gateshead, and I'm not talking about those 28 or so hardy souls that had travelled down from the North East.

Nothing annoys me more at a football match than OUR fans cheering for the opposition, no matter how low we are, or are set to become, cheering the opposition should NEVER EVER happen, and I would question the intellect of people who do this.

Sure, we are not the best team in the world right now, but don't you think the players know that? They are trying to make the best of what they have, and that goes for Mick Wadsworth too, it's as though people have now started to get on his back, and yet we are now starting to get some results.

I just can't work it out.

It was a graveyard atmosphere on Tuesday, no doubt about that, and has been mentioned before, the club need to try and do something about it, but until new owners arrive at the Deva, this is unlikely to happen.

I handed out leaflets along with others at the game the other night, for our new supporters group, City Fans United, and I'm pleased to say a great response from the fans passing by who wished us luck, some have already sent in their details to become members, and I urge other Chester fans to do the same, we really are trying to create a united Fan base, and this is the way forward!

We have some great ideas & a lot of those have come from supporters themselves, so if you have any yourself, please let me know, or even e-mail register@cityfansunited.com with your ideas & suggestions - we may be able to do something about it, and improve the match day experience - although we can't perform miracles on results!

Hopefully by this time next week, there will be further details released about a special "Chester Legends" night in December coming up, where we are hoping to attract a number of ex-players to the City for a night of celebration. Players such as Ian Helliwell, Steve Finney, and Kamu Laird have been invited - only joking!

Anyway, that's it for now, I've rambled on enough, here's to three points tomorrow, it will probably happen too as I'm not at the game due to another occasion taking place on the same day, so I'll be constantly checking my phone for updates - Come on City!!!

s this a dream, or am I going to wake up in the morning realising that Chester City FC did actually win their first game of the season on Saturday? In fact their first 3 points since Boxing Day 2008. But don't be thinking that we deserved to go into the half-time break 1-0 up. The first half highlights were the airshow at Airbus in Broughton and the new Airbus A380 flying over the Deva Stadium as well as the Red Arrows.
I was driving to the ground when the team news came through and if I hadn't been very nearly at the ground I would have been tempted to turn back and go home and watch paint dry, with the Chuckle Brothers being named in the team. Not only were they in the team but both, yes both, were in the starting line up. What was Mick Wadsworth thinking? This begs the questions whether Wadsworth is indeed picking the squad.
When I arrived into the stadium I thought have I got the right day for the match, surely it is today we are playing? Well, I had got the right day but this had to be the worst attendance since the days of the Mad Yank, with a crowd of just 1,171 in the crowd and 38 of those were Histon Fans.
Once the game had started I could see why only a few of their fans had attended this match and we weren't much better. There was no life in the game and no atmosphere in the stadium either, I was very tempted to wait until half time and go home, but I decided to stick it out. I have to say the second half was a much improved performance and the highlight of the match was when Stephen Vaughan Jnr got substituted for Shaun Kelly. If that wasn't a clear message to the owner that his sons aren't wanted at this club then I don't know what will get the message across.
It was also great to see Gregg Blundell come on for the unfortunate injury to Lewis Alessandra who must now have ended his loan spell with us after his injury today looks likely to have placed him out of Tuesday's match with Tamworth .
The partnership of Gregg Blundell and Nick Chadwick up front gave the fans some real hope that this season isn't all but lost after all, and after seeing Chadwick score again for the club we must be thinking we are lucky to have found him.
The outlook for the season after today's result: We need to play a lot better than we did in the first half, but if we can play like we did in the second half for the rest of the season then it at least gives us a glimmer of hope.

Well this my first blog on here, and I'm pleased to say that we're in the middle of a September heatwave in Costa del Chester, but things on the pitch haven't exactly been white hot as far as results have been concerned, even Derren Brown would have struggled to predict Chester City's summer!

Having had those first two games postponed thanks to the off field events which I really don't need to, and come to think of it, don't really want to revisit, the Blues took to the pitch for the first time in that home game against Cambridge, and what happens? We score in the very first twenty seconds of the game, that's it we're back, not only that but we then go and have the audacity to make it 2-0, the charge of the light (blue) brigade is on, we are going to escape relegation - even with a 25 point penalty!

Now we all know that's where the good times stopped thanks to ex-Chester striker Chris Holroyd, he just had to didn't he? The pain didn't stop there either, a thumping at Oxford, and then just when we were about to head for the anti-depressants, we go and get a point a Luton against the odds, proving that football is truly an unpredictable game!

Once again that false dawn reared its ugly head, as we then decided to gift Mansfield a dream of a headstart at the Deva which we just couldn't recover from, then another up, then a half decent display at Altrincham, followed by a victory, yes, a victory - we'd done it, Chester had won a game, the dream is on again.

You just knew it wouldn't last, and being a Chester fan, you tend to go down the road called Delight Lane, only to take the wrong turn and end up in Disappointment Close, and so it proved as we crashed at home to Tamworth.

I'm writing this prior to the game away to Eastbourne, so what happens next in the sequence then?

I don't know, I'll just ring Derren Brown!

Saturday will always feel like a football day to me and on those occasions when I'm not at a match, I'll generally be refreshing my laptop screen looking for a goal update.

But last Saturday, circumstances meant I was in a shopping centre from 3-5pm. It was a strange experience to see people who don't follow the God of Football going about their usual Saturday afternoon business - and this time I was one of them! I wasn't even wearing my Chester polo shirt to mark me out from the crowd.

Under those conditions, I was fully prepared for City to lose heavily. How could they win without me having some sort of participation - even at the end of the world wide web?

Obviously I had my mobile phone on hand to keep me updated as I mingled with the throng of non-football lovers. The first Chester goal actually came when I was on an escalator - possibly the first time someone has celebrated a Blues goal on that spot.