Chester FC

Two Years On...The Dream Is Still Alive

2012-03-10T00:01:00.001Z

March 10^th, 2010, was a horrible day for Chester City fans – make no mistake about that. The end of the Club they had supported for years, decades, many heading towards a century, but in one fell swoop the Club they had followed collectively since 1885 was shut down, thanks to one unpaid tax bill hearing at the High Court.

The problems of course had surfaced long before that unpaid tax bill, with a whole plethora of problems at the football club we had put so many years of effort and support into.

It was a black day in the history of the Club.

It was however, also the dawn of a brand new and brighter era for the fans. Knowing that the support was out there from not just our own fans, but fans from other clubs up and down the country gave hope and inspiration to those who dared to dream of a better future for football in Chester.

Who would have thought that the days of being embarrassed to wear the blue and white striped shirts around the City would turn completely on its head and become a ‘cool’ trend amongst kids and adults alike to be seen in their tops around the historic City of ours.

Who would have thought that the fans who met in ‘Bingo halls’ as some said, would go on to deliver a Club that actually embraced the Community, and gaining supporters – some who had never been down to the Deva Stadium before – and many who returned for the new era, convinced that this was a new dawn for the Club.

Who would have believed that we would see such a great standard of football at the level we were faced with playing, and enjoyable trips to grounds around the North West of England, and some beyond that perimeter.

Who would have thought that we’d be appearing on national radio as proof that a club can prosper despite being effectively knifed through the heart by its previous owners in its previous form?

Who would have believed that a Club could be pulled together in just 12 weeks and that the Club would win silverware in its first season as a reformed club.

The fact is that the fans did believe that this was possible, and this is only the start of the journey to get to the Promised Land… the Football League.

Those fans, the 2000 odd owners of Chester Football Club, the 500 Junior Blues, the 3500 that turned up for the Nantwich game in 2012, the 4000 Twitter followers, the 5000 weekly visitors to the Club’s Facebook page, and the 20,000 monthly unique visitors to the Club’s website, believe that Chester FC is part of their lives, and how right they are.

Chester FC is now in our hearts and in our soul (apologies Everton fans!), but then again, it always was, and that is why it was worth fighting for in the first place. The Club was on its knees, desperate, looking for a lifeline, but cruelly denied it by one family in particular.

The Family that is the Chester Family stood up and were counted, and now that family is spreading the word throughout the Community, that their Club is alive and kicking, and on the way back – and how.

We have a Manager that is totally dedicated to winning trophies and driving the Club forward, the board is totally dedicated to that too, and are doing things the right way, to ensure that nothing, I repeat nothing, puts the club’s future at risk.

It has been a challenging two years alright, but look at how far we have come – from that first friendly at Colwyn Bay, where 1500 fans travelled to herald a new era, to the away match at Garforth last season where 2300 fans made the journey to Yorkshire to go through what can be described as a ‘unique’ experience to win a League at it’s first attempt.

This season has seen no let up in the ambitions to get back to the first milestone, which is Conference football, and with five or six more wins, may actually leave the Evo-Stik League for the Conference League – where the old girl Chester City died.

Two years ago, we felt numb, gutted that it had come to losing our club, and yes we were a bunch of romantics who believed that we could do something about it, and thankfully we weren’t the only ones with the backing received at the Guild Hall in February & May 2010, and also at that very first home match against Trafford in September 2010. Then we knew that this was a dream that could come true.

The best thing in the two years for me, has been the smiles of the faces inside the ground, yes there are always debates about whether that player or this player should be in the starting eleven, or why we didn’t score 3 goals rather than 2, but isn’t it great to be talking about that rather than worrying where the next winding up order was coming from, or how much the next unpaid tax bill would be for?

Football in Chester has changed forever, and if we keep doing what we’re doing, then it can only bode well for the Club’s future – especially with all the kids that are coming down to the ground now.

If you haven’t got your little one signed up to the Junior Blues yet, then do it today, it’s a fantastic way to get our younger fans hooked on to Chester FC the way you were. If you haven’t joined or renewed your CFU membership yet, then do it today, this is YOUR club, and who else can claim to be owners of their football club for just a fiver??

The nightmare of March 10^th, 2010 happened, but so did the rising of the Phoenix on the same day, and the fire is still breathing now amongst every Chester fan, and long may it continue. We need to keep that fire alive, and everyone can play their part in doing so, so please keep it going, and help us prove to everyone that Chester FC are well and truly on their way back.

Chester Forever.

Chester FC on Radio 1 - Who would've thought it?

2012-02-28T08:17:00.000Z

Yes, I never really thought I'd see Chester FC & Radio 1 in the same sentence, but yesterday that actually happened, when an out of the blue (no pun intended) call came through from the Radio 1 Newsbeat team, who were looking to do a feature about the situation in football at present, notably at Portsmouth & Rangers, and wanted to see how a club can cope with going under, and if there is any way back.

We have displayed at Chester FC that there is life after death, and that hope is never lost, despite having to go through what was a cruel, cruel death thanks to to one family's work, some may say we're better for it now, to be where we are now, although I would never agree with the sentiment 'It's the best thing to ever happen to us' - as I don't believe it was, if a person dies having been in pain, you wouldn't often say that it was 'the bets thing that ever happened to them' - you'd probably say that they were now in a better place - and that's the way I see things.

March 10th 2010, was one of the hardest days to bear, knowing that our club would be wound up in the High Court, left a very bitter taste in the mouth with how Chester City FC had been destroyed, without any chance of saving it. Some fans from 12 miles up the road say how we let the club die unlike them when they put their money in to save the club - well it was a completely different situation.

At Chester, the fact was that Vaughan wanted £750,000 - a little different than the £150k raised by Wrexham fans - there was no way he was going to see that back, no way at all. I even remember the argument I had with him over the phone at work on my lunch - stood up at my desk, for a solid hour, with him telling me that he deserved this money and that we could have the club as long as we took on the debt, which was mainly a claim of loans from himself.

The Club was in a mess, and as we know, one that it would fail to recover from in the form of Chester City, and on March 10th, the message came through that it had gone, and for a moment a pause then the thought of 'this is it, this is where it all begins for real' and the process of building the club up again would start that very day, that Wednesday, in March.

Of course a lot of work had already been done in the background, with the thought 'Hope for the Best, Prepare for the Worst' in mind - it had served us well to do just that, and from that moment on we never looked back, and have always tried to do the right thing - I say tried, as not everyone agrees with key decisions that are made, that's just human nature, if we all agreed it would be boring. One thing is for sure though, whatever steps we have taken to move the club forward have done just that, and we plough on trying to get back to the promised land of the football league.

A good debate is where we'll think we have got back to where the club was when CCFC died that painful death. Is it when we get back to the Blue Square Prem, where the Club was sitting in minus points whilst the wreckage ensued all round it?

Would it be when we get to the Blue Square North, as CCFC would obviously have been relegated in that final season had it lasted, or would it be the league we're now fighting to escape from as the Conference would have more than likely kicked CCFC out of both of their leagues given the issues they were presented with, so it could have been that the league we're in now is where CCFC would be today had it continued, so it could be argued that we're now at where the Club left off.

The way I see it is that we just remain focused and get on with it, it won't feel like the first part of the job is done until we get to the BSP, which will hopefully be just around the corner, and I keep looking at the table to see just how tough the Conference North is, and Halifax, despite picking up recently, have started to endure a bit of a blip, now we all know about those of course, but I really hope that Halifax get promoted this year, as they are definitely one of the stronger teams in the Conference North, and it would be great for them to get back to the Conference too, given their history.

Jim Harvey's Stalybridge seem to have hit a stumbling block too, for a while it looked like it would be them & Hyde who would be fighting it out for promotion, but Hyde appear to have it half in the bag now/ I do fancy our chances in the Conference North though I have to say, but let's just get there first, hopefully we won't see a repeat of last season where it went down to the last day - we have taken a really strong step forward recently, with results also going our way, so with an 8 point lead and a game in hand in the bag, hopefully we're in a stronger position this year, it certainly feels like it. We just need to see Northwich play a few games, and drop points along the way!!

Oh yes, back to Radio 1, never would I have thought that I'd be getting a call off them, we'll be on the Top 40 next - maybe The Jestrian's Neil Young rap will make it to the top of the charts!!

It's all good coverage though for the club, and hopefully it won't end there, I'm sure Football Focus will be getting an invite to come back to the Exacta again 12 months on from their last visit here, and I'll keep on trying, but hopefully one day Sky Sports Soccer Saturday will take a trip down here too, it seems ages ago since I did an interview by the river with them, so think I'll give them another reminder that we're still here - and doing well!

So, onto Saturday we go then and Frickley away, we were all cheering that equalizer on Saturday in their game against Hednesford, and they won't be easy either considering they took a point off us at the Exacta earlier on in the season, but hopefully the lads will give it their all and come back with 3 points!

Come on you Blues!!!

Back on the Promotion trail

2012-02-01T08:37:00.000Z

I must admit, I've only just realised that I've not blogged since before Christmas, so to anyone reading this, hope you enjoyed your festive celebrations, and had a great New Year, seeing the Blues top of the League at Christmas and going into 2012 was all we wanted, and got!

Form has been a bit patchy for the Blues since that win at Marine, but the fact remains we are now three points clear of Hednesford, with 2 games in hand, and with the implosion at Northwich, Chorley & Marine seem as though they could be the challengers to the current top 2.

Powell gets a late Christmas card

That Northwich game was extremely frustrating, with the early goal and sending off meaning we should have won that match at a canter, but we failed to take our chances, and let Northwich back in it, and if we're being truthful the ref could and should perhaps of given Vics a penalty in the last minute - although it wasn't the first mistake of the day by him, having decided to let himself be overruled by an official who was furthest from the Michael Powell and John Disney incident - purely ridiculous that.

The turn of the year saw us then take on Nantwich at home, and revenge was in the air following the 4-1 defeat back in August, but Nantwich proved very stubborn, and a succession of missed chances meant that our first home game of the new year ended in a draw, just like it did back in 2011 against Warrington! The most amazing thing from the Nantwich game was the attendance, over 3500 were inside the Exacta, and I'd popped in to the Safety Room to ask if we were anywhere near the 3000 mark at about 2.50pm and was staggered to be told we were already over 3200 and people were still queueing outside!

The thoughts then turned to Rushall, where we all wondered how we'd fare against a team that have taken points from most of the teams at the top of the table this season, but those fears were dispelled as we set out on a major 4-0 win over our West Midland counterparts, and that was great to see, restoring some confidence perhaps lost in the Nantwich draw.

Maybe next year, Wembley.

Attentions then turned to the FA Trophy, and I think it's fair to say we were all gutted that we didn't get at least a draw against Ebbsfleet, as our performance certainly deserved that outcome, having had to travel so far, the lads pulled out the stops to try and get the replay, but that 3rd goal just wouldn't come, and the Wembley dream was left behind, with a possible envious glance back at Wembley Stadium by those travelling back on the train.

I definitely think we missed Powelly in the middle, and who knows maybe we would have got something had he not been missing that game.

Then the big game at home to Hednesford, and another great crowd, only 91 fans travelled from the Midlands, which was maybe disappointing, but seeing over 3200 Chester fans inside again was superb. As for the match, well that was another day of frustration, with rare slip ups at the back costing us the game, but I did feel that if we could have got back to 2-2 in that game then we would have gone on to win, but alas we didn't and we had to surrender our superb home run of 27 games without defeat.

eerily dark on a sunny day

Perhaps the most disappointing thing to deal with was the smashing of a window on the away supporters coach - there is no place for that kind of act at our Club, we have built Chester FC up with a family reputation, and that will continue. These people just don't realise the effect that this has on the Club, think back to the Colwyn Bay mess. We were trying to get various sponsorship deals for the Club, and they then see that there is trouble at our first friendly - that had so much impact on what we were trying to do, as potential sponsors will think that they do not want to be involved with bad news, and rightly so. But thanks to a great effort to pull sponsors back in, we succeeded in convincing them that Chester FC were a forward thinking club, with a strong community ethos, and I think the proof is in the pudding, but these idiots certainly don't think about the fact they are hurting the Club they claim to support.

Anyway, back to the football, and we were all left disappointed by the fact the Liverpool v Man Utd reserves match had fallen foul of the weather a couple of weeks ago, and there was an argument that the pitch covers should have been deployed, but in the end it really made no difference as the temperature plummeted once the sun disappeared beneath the West Stand, and ice started to appear on the pitch and by 6pm it was clear that the game would have been a ice-nightmare for the players involved, and we could have talking of the likes of Berbatov causing themselves a great injury, something which we would have not wanted, and clearly the ref decided the same. Who knows what kind of action these clubs could take if such an incident occurred.

That game will hopefully be replayed in April, and certainly Liverpool understood that we were beaten by the weather, and hopefully come April, we'll have better weather and a potentially bigger crowd.

The fact that we had another home game on the Saturday meant that we would take no chances on the Friday night, and we put the call out for fans to come down and help lay the pitch covers, and I think that it was the right decision to make as the cold snap certainly happened on the Friday night, and a quick call to arms again meant that the game went ahead, and what a start - 2 goals in the first 20 minutes, and I think its fair to say we were all expecting an avalanche of goals, but it really didn't happen, and after Mickleover scored their goal we sort of went into our shell a bit.

The plus point was the introduction of Stefan Cox who certainly had a lively looking debut, when he eventually got the ball, he then made life a misery for the full back, and when he swapped to the right wing, with Howard on the left, we looked to have a bit more balance, and Cox looked electric down the right, despite being a left winger!

My favourite shot from a cold crisp day at the Exacta

I recently took the opportunity to get some snaps of the Exacta Stadium, on a cold crisp day, and hopefully anyone reading this (is there anyone reading this bar me??) will like those photos, which I've included on here today.

On the media side recently, there has been plenty going on, just the other week myself & Pat visited the new BBC set up at Salford Quays, to meet one of Colin Murray's production team, and the place was very impressive, a very 'open' feel to it, with all staff having a decent view out of the windows, but also where people walking past can see in to their office, so you're pretty much on view here to anyone!

We're working together with Colin's team for something that we had hoped to announce this season, but things have just dragged on a little bit longer than what we'd hoped, but we will still definitely be doing something with Colin & co in the near future - the major plus is that he has been coming to our home games whenever possible, showing his support for the Blues.

The Jestrian has to be one of my favourite reads each day, even though I'm the butt of some of those made up names, Jar Jar Banks, Army Tanks, and Jaffie Bracks being some of those names, but I do love the humour of it, and its all a welcome break from the busy life that this 'media junkie' seems to have, even though I'm officially out of work at the moment!!

Looking ahead to today, well there is a stack of CFU stuff to be getting on with, so time to put a bit of man power to that, will blog again soon, and will attempt to not leave it over a month this time!

Come On You Blues!

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!

2011-12-23T06:58:00.000Z

Well it's been a while since I blogged - it's just been crazily busy recently so not really had the chance to do much, so 2012 will be different on that score that's for sure - it's been a brilliant 12 months with the Championship win and the team currently top of the Evo-Stik Premier League - what an amazing feat that the lads have achieved.
It's been a very busy time off the pitch too, with much work being done behind the scenes too, and special praise must go out to all the volunteers who are each doing their own bit to help drive the club forward - I'm sure each and every one of those volunteers really enjoy what they are doing to help, and that is how we all feel too, so again together as one.

One of my favourite moments of 2011

Being a Chester fan has never been easy, and its definitely been challenging at times, but the 10's (as in the 80s, 90s etc) has certainly got off to a great start, and that 40 year cycle of Chester FC continues to trend, in the 1930's the club entered the football league, in the 1970's the Club enjoyed it's best ever spell, and now in the 2010's we are enjoying the Club being reborn, and treating us all to some great away days, and results to go with them.

Next week of course it's the Boxing Day match at Northwich, and I can't remember getting this excited since that Boxing Day trip to Preston North End when we were chasing promotion from the old Division 3 (the one after it used to be Division 4 of course!), and that day we took 2500 fans to Deepdale, with the home stewards and police shocked that we'd brought so many. I think only the trip to Blackburn could put that one in the shade, and what an atmosphere that turned out to be, and I'm sure the one at Northwich will be a cracker (no pun intended), and the sound of 'Yellows Yellows' will be ringing away arund the ground.

Much has been made of the Northwich chairman, and their interesting way of ticketing arrangements, and we will only know on Boxing Day if what they decided on was a mistake or not, certainly their 'poke' at Chester was unwarranted, and every other Club has agreed to the commission rate on tickets sold from the Exacta - it's just standard practice - but for some it obviously isn't. They want slave labour.

This last week has been interesting too on the media side of things, with a request for me to do an interview with the Ebbsfleet Podcast to help preview the big game in the FA Trophy in January. The podcast is I think aimed at those exiled from Ebbsfleet, or those who have bought a piece of 'My Football Club' that live in the US - either way, it was a nice little interview and I tried to push home just what Chester fans had been through in the last few years, well decades I should say!

That interview is due to air sometime next week I believe.

9 Gold Rings - Classic Ash!

Last night was the Chester FC Christmas Party, and it was a really good night once again at Chester Racecourse, and a chance to take the mickey out of a few of the players via the Christmas Quiz - seeing them attempting to guess the Christmas song titles via a Give Us a Clue type game was classic!

Well that's about it today, I could go on, but it's my last day at work and I now have to get ready before 12 years at MBNA comes to an end, so to all Chetser fans, have a brilliant Christmas & New Year, and let's get those singing voices ready for Northwich on Boxing Day - COYB!

By the way The Jestrian, what a top blog, and amazingly one of my favourite Christmas bites is a box of Jaffa Cakes!

Merry Christmas!

Away Days are great aren't they...apart from Plymouth

2011-10-21T12:56:00.001+01:00

What an amazing day last Saturday was.

One of the best I would say since following the Blues, and we’ve had some crackers too, but there is nothing like coming behind after the referee has gifted the opponents two goals, meaning you think you’re playing against twelve, thirteen or fourteen men – let me check, yes they were all male officials – to then turn it around and grab a winning goal right at the end, that was special.

The celebrations probably seemed over the top to FCUM fans, but hey, we’ve put up with so much shit over the years, that we’re entitled to celebrate like we’d won the world cup at the end of the match – how many times have we seen late goals going in that have cost us a game, many I would think, so we’ll enjoy this one thank you very much.

The actual game reminded me of my first match memory, all the way back in 1982 I think it was, eek 30 year anniversary to come next year, but if I remember it correctly, we were playing Portsmouth at the time, yes, really.

Tervor Morley - season wrecker

We ended up taking the lead in that game, before we were 2-1 down, only then to come storming back to win 3-2, and that is where my love affair with Sealand Road and Chester FC started, I wish it was all as good as that – christ knows I’ve seen some shockers over the years, the worst at Sealand Road was probably the 5-0 defeat at home to Northampton on the first game of the season, a lovely summer’s day, everyone singing songs with high spirits, and then the referee’s whistle sounded and Trevor Morley went on to wreck our first game with a hat trick against us. I clearly remember this match as I’d won free tickets to sit in the Main Stand (only ever did this three times, the other two were the 1-0 win in the Fright Rover Trophy against Mansfield, when we were so so close to getting to Wembley, and the other being our fine 2-1 win over Wrexham in 86 – ‘Mean, Mean, Mean Machine’ – come on Stevie Johnson!).

Anyway, where was I? Oh that’s right, free tickets. I’d won them in a competition on Marcher Sound, as it was then, I couldn’t believe it, a freebie to watch my beloved Blues, and then they go and do that – I wrote back asking for a refund even though it’d had not cost me a penny!

Hmmm, not like the old away end then? Bastards.

Talking of worst games, there are a few that stand out in memory following Chester. The 1-0 defeat to Plymouth in the FA Cup, it pissed down all day, the coach journey back was possibly the most miserable of trips ever, remember sitting there in my boxers as the jeans had come off they were that soaked – I sincerely hope that would be on the only time someone would sit on the Hipkiss Express in their boxer shorts!

That day really annoyed me, the rain was one thing, but they even told us Blues that there were no seats available in the covered stand, only to then pay at the turnstile for the open terrace, and look up and see loads of empty seats. Bastards.

They then proceeded to keep us in for 20 minutes after the game, by this point we’d all be doing impressions of a human sponge, and just as we thought we’d nick a replay, they scored a late winner, 5 minutes before the end if I remember correctly. Bastards.

They then marched us through a covered stand – why did they do that, did they just want to rub it in even more? – then on what seemed a circular journey to go back to our coaches, we’d have been closer to the coaches if we’d just gone through the turnstiles we came through in. Bastards. Magic of the FA Cup my arse.

The other crap games I remember, well until the mid 90’s Mansfield away was always crap, we always seemed to get beat 2-0 there. Hartlepool was quite possibly the coldest place on earth – apart from winter in Macclesfield 1990-91.

We did have some crap home games too, I seem to remember Crewe stuffing us 6-0 at the Deva in the mickey mouse tournament (that had been devalued since we were so close to Wembley). I remember that match for two reasons, one for the result, and the second for the fact it was the first match for my now ex-girlfriend, she never came again, bad omen she turned out to be!

The 5-1 defeat at home to Leyton Orient was a shitter too, that turned out to be the day that I bumped into Terry Smith in the corridor at the back of the club, told him in no uncertain terms what I thought of it, and him, and next thing he was stepping down. Good.

Pejic...crap.

In fact I had made a habit of that, as when we got beat 4-0 at home to Birmingham at the Deva, I was doing the commentary for the blind in those days, and when Mick Pejic came up, I had a pop at him, and he said ‘Do you think you could do better yourself?’, “Yes” I told him, and also said I’d love to have the chance to prove it. He got sacked a few days later!

I better watch what I say with Youngy ha ha!

Drifted off a bit there, so back to it – amazing support at FC United, non stop singing was absolutely superb. What a load of rubbish when we were told by FCUM that they couldn’t hear us – did we hear them? No, not really, we were too busy singing!

Apologies to all who I may have jumped on in that melee after the second goal, it was just a case of dancing a jig of delight, and then I managed to compose myself somehow for the winner! Great day out, it’s not often you win 30-2 away from home!

More of the same tomorrow lads!!!

What a long month!

2011-10-02T16:20:00.001+01:00

Little did I realise how eventful September would become...

When the month started, it was more a case of the lads bouncing back from the Bank Holiday defeat at Nantwich, and what a good start was made to that, but who would have envisaged that for the rest of the month Chester FC would go on to score 23 goals without reply, with 7 wins on the bounce, one of those a very very satisfying win over Chorley at the Exacta.

The whole month for me though was destined to become linked to working on the launch of the new website, although I don't think even I realised how much time it would require!

London looked good in the blue sky!

In mid September myself & Chris Pilsbury visited Perform, the group who supply all the help and expertise of running the websites across the league, those Football League websites that you see. Before we got there though we took a breather and had a look at the London eye before getting the train on to our final destination!

Seeing their premises was impressive, and seeing how they pull things together was even more eye-opening. We were given a tour of the buildings, and shown how they receive streams of live sport from across the world, and how they then transfer that in to websites around the world.

During that visit, we learned a lot, and also found out that the anticipated go-live date would be just 10 days after our visit - that frightened the shit out of me if I'm being perfectly honest!

So, the task would be to bring together content for the whole site, which at this starting point was a shell, so much work would be needed to get it to where it needed to be.

The next 10 days and nights then would be full of work at home for me, so everything else had to be forgotten about for the time being, sadly that included the Hyde away game, and the match at Stafford too, as I would simply have run out of time.

Unfortunately this also meant pretty much being in my own world for 10 days & nights too, so ended up probably becoming a stranger to my own wife, so now it's live there is plenty of making up to be done!

Yes please!

Last weekend was quite stressful in the way that I knew everything had to be bang on, but some things weren't working or appearing as I'd expected it too on the test site, whilst there were other items that would be part of the package that I hadn't even got around to looking at just yet. By 10pm I'd had enough of staring at the screen though, so power off and time for sleep!

So, the Monday morning, as ever, up at 5.30am and opened up the PC prior to going to work, and doing some last minute tests - everything was ready at my end, now it would be over to Perform to test and hopefully launch on the Monday.

There were a few issues which still needing ironing out as there were a few references to Chester City FC which we obviously needed to remedy, and with the testing of the website, it appeared that it would take longer for the launch to happen, and on Monday afternoon it was decided that the site would be launched on the Tuesday, as some testing still had to be done on the Tuesday morning.

It was almost a case of what else could I do on the Monday night, so I had a quick read of CoveritLive, the live text commentary, but my head was so panned from the weekend where I'd sat on the couch with the laptop on for 12 hours each day, that I just called it quits and chilled out!

So, to Tuesday morning, and here we go again, waiting for the nod, which finally came in the afternoon, as it took a few hours for everything to be put in to production, and finally at around 6pm the website went live, so the next few hours were spent dealing with any issues that had arisen on the site, or things that weren't showing correctly.

I think I fell flat asleep on the Tuesday night, but pleased it was finally launched, and just in time too before the big Chorley game on the Wednesday.

So, Wednesday night it was back to the Exacta and I think everyone was feeling up for it during the day, and couldn't wait for the action to start - there was plenty to do pre match too, with plenty of press coming along, plus the setting up of the half time penalty shoot out which involved some running round to organise, but we got there!

The match itself was a great occasion, the first half was edgy, but as soon as Brownie let rip with that thunderbolt of a shot, there was only one winner, and when Matty McNeil headed in for number 2, I nearly gave myself a broken neck when I went running down the steps to celebrate, thankfully the wall in front halted the charge forward!

Well beaten!

That third goal was a peach too, with Wes curling it home from 25 yards, and that was that - I was in the tunnel when the players were coming in, and just gave Mr Flitcroft a wink, with one word, "Unlucky" - and then back out to help sort out the exit of the Chorley media, and back to quickly get a drink in what was a hot bar!

What a night, and a great way to see out September!

Plenty more to come in October, and let's hope that our great run continues, and that we get Chorley back off the top of the table!

Back on Track!

2011-09-09T08:55:00.000+01:00

It's been an eventful week at Chester FC.

Following the Nantwich Nightmare, so much was said, and vented, but we all just wanted to get back to winning ways on Saturday at home to North Ferriby, and the lads were clearly of the same mindset, whipping United 6-0 in front of a decent gate of over 2100.

It was the perfect response. Iain Howard & Chris Simm recalled to the team that they'd been dropped from a few days earlier due to their lateness, and I'm sure people now realise why that had to happen, and when I saw them on the pitch before the game as I walked in, I gave them a bit of banter about the fact that they were here on time this week!

In my blog for The Cestrian last time out I was writing about big wins, but I didn't actually think we'd get such a big win on Saturday as the team we were playing were half decent themselves, but when I saw that they'd only been able to name 3 subs, hopes were lifted.

It was fairly even early doors, and North Ferriby were looking like a team who had done well the past few seasons, having been involved in the Play offs, but as soon as Simmo scored their was only going to be one winner.

Then, step up Iain Howard - a beautiful step over and drag back of the ball led to a pass for Simmo to run on to and collect his second of the match, when he slid the ball under the keeper, Simmo admitted after the game he was knackered by the time he got to the penalty area - well at least he didn't get his feet all tangled up again like the FC United game ha ha!

It was then Iain's turn though to put the ball in the net, and how, a special scissor-cum-overhead kick that found its way into the corner of the net to put the Blues 3 up - this was the icing on the cake, but the cherry would follow later!

Think Brad & the Harry Mac enjoyed that one!

In a week when many have demanded Bradley Barnes gets a look in, Neil decided to introduce him to the match, and what a great reception he got too - and in just a few minutes he had everyone cheering after blasting home in front of the Harry Mac - he couldn't have been better placed!

Barnesy didn't get long to celebrate his though as Robbie Booth let fly from the edge of the area, and with the aid of a deflection made it 5-0, a great goal, and well deserved for Boothy who has been working extremely hard to get where he is now.

The scoring wasn't over then either, as Matty McGinn - quite possibly one of Chester's best ever loan signings, was upended in the penalty area, and he got up dusted himself down, and blasted home another spot kick, 6-0!

So, a great day for The Blues, and everyone feeling much better thank you than the previous Monday, and that's what we all needed, confidence back again - well done boys!

It was a football dominated few days, probably didn't go down too well at home, what with the England match on Friday night, the Chester match on Saturday, board meeting on Monday night, England match again on Tuesday night, followed by the Chester game at Ashton on Wednesday - wall to wall? You betcha.

So, to Ashton, and I still can't believe the weather the other night, I bet the subs were pleased to be sitting on that bench, as it couldn't have been much fun out there in that torrential rain, it was bad enough watching from the sides!

Iain Howard - great at pens apparently

I did a bit of Boardroom duty at Ashton, and I have to say that we were looked after superbly by the Ashton officials, had a good chat about Iain Howard, being a previous player of theirs and they informed us that he is deadly from the penalty spot, so we'll be looking for that in future Cup games if needed!

What a start we got off to though,and Simmo was the hero again, he really is on fire at the moment, and long may it continue - he's been running his plums off recently and now he is getting the rewards with the goals, but I don't think anyone was expecting such a quick start the other night in that rain, but we pretty much dominated that game, and deserved the second goal, although for some reason watching the match, you never feel comfy until we get a third.

That didn't come, but the rain did, and fair play to Pat Cluskey, who was taking the kit bag home, his car must have weighed a ton going back, and Jimmy would need more than Daz Ultra to get that crap off the kits!

We're back to Friday again, and another away day at Worksop tomorrow, let's hope the boys bring the points home again, and we can push on in our quest for the title!

Bring on North Ferriby!

2011-09-02T07:08:00.002+01:00

It's been a long week for Chester fans, having experienced both the highs and lows of the game in the past 7 days, with a thumping win at home to Stocksbridge, followed by a thumping defeat at Nantwich.

Not the best away day we've had

Much has been said about the performance and result at Nantwich, so I won't touch on that, but some people should take a look at themselves with their over the top criticism of "the club they love" - we've all seen bad games involving Chester, christ knows the last ten years have seen enough crap performances to turn us into manic depressives, but we have come out of that era, the last thing we want to do is see the club head back into it thanks to abuse of the players, who if that is continued are bound to be affected by it.

The one thing that the lads need is the fans behind them, when things are not going well, they need encouragement, not slating personally, like what happened on Monday.

Nasri accidentally downloads Arsenal Fans greatest hits

I often think about what players feel about fans when they hear scrams of abuse from fans (in genaral now, not talking about Monday), and you only have to look at Samir Nasri, who decided to up and leave Arsenal after the disgusting songs from Gunners fans which upset the player, how the hell you can take pride in singing a foul mouthed song against your own player is beyond me. That player decided to leave the club, when it appeared he was going to be staying, and that I'm sure would be on players minds when hearing such abuse.

Players need confidence to do well, and the rewards are the performances and goals that we'll see in front of us, but we need to be on their side if they are to do well.

It's been a big media week this week, with several good things coming out following Monday, which has lightened things up around the place.

The Guardian did of course do a lengthy feature on the FC United game last Wednesday, and I'm just so pleased that we put on our best display of the season, and maybe beyond that, in our 2-1 win, which I know the boys from The Guardian really enjoyed, so much so, that when I went to do my interview with them the following day, they actually bought not one, but two club scarves, their way of saying thank you, and helping the club at the same time.

About the same time we had the NATV footage too, which was cracking, everyone was awaiting this, and we were kept waiting due to a dodgy PC fault, but thankfully the footage came through, and we've all enjoyed remembering what a quality night it was.

Just this morning, I've had a request off BBC Wales, who are looking to do a feature with the Club, I think they are looking at the fan-owned picture as a whole, and want to see how we have managed to get Chester FC off the ground, so expecting some more cameras at the Kendal game on the 14th September.

Time to look forward to the North Ferriby United game tomorrow now, and it is of course Non League Day, with the emphasis on getting first timers to a non-League match, based on the fact that there are non Premier League games due to the international break this weekend.

Martin Huxley has designed a great poster, which we are aiming to be in most pubs across Chester, and we've got volunteers covering most of them, and hopefully it will entice a few newbies to the Exacta tomorrow as there will be nothing to do for those Liverpool, Everton, Man Utd & City fans, so they may as well come on down to experience 'football as it used to be'!

Ladies link up with Blues

Yesterday I did a quick interview with Dee 106.3 who were referring to our press release about the link up with the Chester Ladies team, this is something that we are delighted to be involved in, the Ladies team have been going for 19 years believe it or not, but have never been officially recognised by the Club, but now things are set to change, and with a change of name from Chester City Ladies to Chester Ladies FC, it's another box ticked when it comes to Chester FC in the Community.

So, we're all set for tomorrow then, and the entertainment at half time will be provided by the Ladies, who are taking part in the Crossbar Challenge, hopefully they'll enjoy the experience, and the crowd will get right behind them!

I've been trying to get a Legend down here for Saturday, but time has conspired against me, although I did try a few, including Peter Jackson, who has stepped down at Bradford, but he is away, unsurprisingly trying to get away from it all for a couple of weeks, and another one attempted was Billy Stewart, who couldn't make the game, as he is currently away with Northern Ireland's Under 21s until next week, so hopefully we'll see Billy, Billy Stewart (clap clap) down at the Exacta soon.

Okay, that's it for now, looking forward to a good show from the lads tomorrow, and hopefully at 4.50pm tomorrow we'll be looking at the table with Chester on 13 points.

Come On You Blues!!!

One of those great nights at the Exacta

2011-08-26T06:46:00.000+01:00

Wednesday night we had such a great atmosphere at the Exacta Stadium for the visit of FC United of Manchester.

I think we all knew we'd get a decent atmosphere, but I think the fact that we got a cracker of a game to go with it was the icing on the cake, oh and the victory too!

The Harry Mac getting in to it on Wednesday!

Considering we have only been together for a year or so now, this match definitely presented us with our biggest opposition to date - and a club that was within a whisker of getting into the Conference North last season, and we more than matched them, in fact I'd say we fully deserved the win over FCUM on Wednesday, and should have been about 3 or 4 up at half time.

It was one of those eagerly anticipated games, and for me even more so as I'd been away when the friendly match took place in July, so definitely was looking forward to this, although was trying to keep the lid on it whilst at work, in order for me to then finish at 4pm, and get in to match day mode.

It was going to be a busy one as far as the media side of things was concerned, as there was plenty going on, Sweden's national radio channel Sportschannel P4 were going to be there, as were The Guardian, who were coming up to film a piece on it, and then there was the visit from FC United's entourage, which included FCUM Radio, who would I'm sure have given a different account to that of Blues Live on Wednesday night!

Blues Live has been a great success so far, and we're now looking at the possibilities of covering the away games, but that is still a possibility rather than a probability given the issues with wireless coverage away from home at some of the grounds in the League - what has to be remembered is that too much use of the wireless signal at away games could pose problems for the press at the game, so all these things have to be taken into account.

Anyway, back to Wednesday, and once at the ground, time to do the usual things in my role, which is of course to see the press, make sure they are sorted with everything for the match ahead, and then dealing with any queries that come my way, greeting the opposing board members, checking in with Cleggy & Dan to give them the schedule for the evening, getting the team details for our Twitter coverage, and then getting the various people ready for the pre match and half time sequences. I also needed to ensure that the Guardian reporters were seeing everyone they needed to see before the game.

One of those was the Chester FC Youth team presentation, and how great that Tony Durkin is sponsoring the Youth team this year - he's been a great sponsor of Chester over the years, and fantastic to see that he is still involved with the club now.

Simmo's laces give way again!!

The game then of course got underway, and what a game we saw, a really good open match with the Blues going for it in the first half, something we all want to see of course, as we've found that we do tend to batter teams in the second half of a game, so why not the first, but we certainly took the game to FC United, and had it not been for the crossbar and Simmo's laces then we could have been 4-0 up at half time, but we'd definitely take the 2 nil lead!

At half time it was of course challenge time, and this week the challenge was to 'Hit the Post' from the half way line, and the winner of the competition certainly gave it a good go, wearing stand our red boots, he hammered his first attempt just inches from the half way line as I looked from the stand, and his second and third attempts weren't that bad either!

He was unlucky in the end, but I think he was made up that he walked away with a family ticket to Chester Races, who'd kindly donated the prize.

Back to the game, and the second half started the same way as the first did, and we were desperately trying to find that third goal, but it just didn't seem to want to find us, and then FC went and made things a whole lot worse by grabbing a goal ten minutes before the end, to ensure that we were all nervous as anything, maybe not Garforth-style nervous, but it was bad enough but when that free kick sailed way way over the bar, that was time to relax, and thankfully the whistle went straight afterwards, and we'd done it, beaten one of the League favourites, and I'm sure confidence will fly though the camp now.

The night wasn't over, as it was time to do the post match stuff, before settling down to a nice cold pint. Think I left the ground at 10.30 but still managed to get a much needed bottle of wine to celebrate with on the way home!

It all starts again tomorrow too, with another home game, and hopefully another decent crowd to follow up on our FC United game, and hopefully another three points on the horizon too, so enjoy the game everyone, and Come on you Blues!

Mixed bag of results in opening week

2011-08-21T23:32:00.000+01:00

So, a draw, a win, and a defeat in the first week of the season, and we're well and truly back on the Chester Rollercoaster that we all boarded just 8 days ago.

It's been one of those starts, where we all wanted to see Chester FC start with 9 points but probably knew deep down that that wouldn't happen, but good to have football back all the same.

The Rushall game was possibly one of the most frustrating games ever, seeing us batter the Olympic goal, but not getting that elusive second goal, even when we got the chance to score from the penalty spot, unfortunately Jamie Rainford saw his decent effort blocked by the keeper, but the kitchen sink soon followed but their defence got in the way of everything to be fair.

"You'll get 3 crap refs in the first three games Chester!"

The performance of the referee was an absolute joke - and probably summed up by the reception the Rushall board - who are a lively (and friendly) bunch, clapped the referee off the pitch with even one shouting "Well done referee" to the man in black - one of the Rushall board was well known from his appearance last season at the Exacta, shouting that we were "big time charlies" and I certainly put him in his place last year but that's another story, we had some very good banter that night, and the same followed this one too, all enjoyable, if a little tiresome knowing the effort that has gone into making Chester FC what it is.

So a draw in the first game, but good to have it all back again, and all the matchday experience that surrounds it, on the first game we had a CFU presence outside the ground with the chance to renew memberships, and we also had the trophies out on show for fans to have their pictures taken with, and for me that's what's it all about - the fans deserve to enjoy the rewards that have come our way. I really do see Chester FC as the 'People's Club'.

It's been a long hard week at work too, and mixed in with that has been several phone calls to many people (press and non-press), organising a Swedish national radio station to come down to the FC United game, and also another conversation with Colin Murray - I'll come back to that later!

In fact, I actually received a text message from Colin whilst standing on the bank behind the goal at Skelmersdale as we set about seeing off a spirited Burscough side, with yet another dodgy refereeing decisison - never a penalty in a million years!

Jamie Rainford, the new Stuart Pearce?

Having seen Jamie Rainford step up Stuart Pearce style to hammer home his penalty, I thought right we're in for a hatful tonight, and we did eventually achieve that, but wasn't expecting Burscough to come back into it the way they did. Never a penalty - have I already said that?

I spent the first half by the dugout, and once again Jimmy Soul was funny to watch, with his disagreements with the officials, he is so so passionate, and love watching his reactions.

Off to the bank behind the goal for the second half then, and amusing to watch several fans trying to keep their drinks balances whilst running down the bank towards the back of the goal. Concentration on the match was achieved though, and the goals started flying in towards the end, what a great finish from Jerome Wright too!

So, back home within an hour with our first victory in the bag, and a happy Wednesday it was, completed with a Rustlers and a bottle of wine from the shop!

Not the best photo David Evans has ever had!

Then Thursday, and a bit tired at work, but the football didn't stop,and a read of The Chronicle at breakfast on Thursday morning showed the story that I'd been in touch with Dave Triggs of the Chron about, the £65k award from the Adult & Community Learning Fund - a truly amazing job by fellow Director, David Evans, and the work he has put in on this should not be under-estimated, and quite rightly got a good write up in the Chron on Thursday.

Thursday afternoon, and at 4pm I left work, to then speak with Colin Murray, who had to ring me back due to being soaked in the London rain, and the call followed, and it was a very good one, we spoke about what we could so with Pat & Perry this season, and there is a belter of an idea on the table for this season, and more about that later, but first Colin had to speak to his producer on the Friday to get the nod.

Friday at work is usually a slowdown day, but not this Friday, it seemed busier than ever despite the announcement that MBNA would be selling off its UK business, so not the best of weeks, but certainly not a quiet one, and after I finished on Friday, I had a couple of calls to take & make, firstly, a follow up with Colin Murray, and good news, in that his producer had given the nod to the idea that we'd spoken about yesterday - stay tuned for more details, as I can't reveal it at present, but it will be special!

Then a call to The Guardian, and a discussion around them coming up to the Exacta next Wednesday to do a special feature during the FC United game, so keep an eye out for that as they will be filming outside the ground. That took a good half an hour, before I suddenly realised that I had to leave as Dee 106.3's Friday Night Football Show was on the horizon.

The ladies love our Shane!

All attentions turned to the weekend then, and the show on Dee, we'd had a good laugh with the Crossbar Challenge during half time at the Rushall game, and I decided to mix it up a bit and go for the a different challenge to be witnessed at the FCRushall game, and I decided to mix it up a bit and go for the a different challenge to be witnessed at the FC United game, and that was to hit the post from the half way line, so nipped down to Dee 106.3 with Shane & other guest Gary Powell, to get that one up & running.

I couldn't actually make it to Hednesford on the Saturday, but was glued to Twitter the whole time and was gutted as everyone else when the news came in about Ashley Williams, and then the goal on 88 minutes that condemned us to our first defeat, and also the first time we hadn't scored in a League game away from the Exacta.

RIP Flt Lt Jon Egging

It was also a very sad day as the Red Arrows lost a member of their own team, with the crash down at Bournemouth, and this made me feel quite down on Saturday night knowing that someone who loved his profession didn't just lose his own life, but he actually put his own life ahead of many others when he steered his aircraft away from causing what would have been a devastation below. Football seemed a distant second when watching the footage, and seeing the words from his wife on the news.

I still had plenty of CFC stuff to do on Saturday night, and if anyone wants to know what it's like to be a football manager of the Blues, and what pressure goes with it, then take an e-mail during the early hours of the morning from Neil Young, who couldn't sleep after the Hednesford match, and a very disappointed Neil Young at that. It was at that point that I thought he's only human like the rest of us, and probably feeling worse than the rest of us about the result.

Now, we're heading towards another big week of football, and just watching Match of the Day 2, so it all starts again tomorrow, and will be looking forward to Wednesday night's game against FC United, who also lost on Saturday of course at home, and I have to say one of their fans was very quiet after telling the world that they'd scored after 33 seconds, strange that!

Roll on Wednesday!

Ready to Go!

2011-08-12T07:08:00.000+01:00

It's the eve of the football season, and all the moan, the groans, punches of delight, dodgy offsides, disallowed goals, and the ups and downs of the football season all get underway again tomorrow, and thank god for that!

Chester v New York Cosmos (..almost)

I think we're all a bit friendly-weary now, and ready to start our league campaign - when the results do matter of course. Friendlies have been a bit strange this year, and I do feel disappointed that we were not able to get a Premier League team down here, but unfortunately most of them were flying away from the UK - yet another reason why the big boys don't help the small clubs, as those 2 weeks they could be playing lower teams from their own country rather than swanning off to shores elsewhere in the world - ah well, gripe over, and we'll be trying our best to get some quality opposition in next year. For the record, we had tried (and failed) to get Liverpool, Aston Villa, Everton, Man City, Man Utd, Stoke, and Wigan, amongst others, but had little success. The closest one I guess was Pat's attempt to get the New York Cosmos in for a match ahead of the Paul Scholes testimonial match, that would have been a classic to reveal had it come off, but sadly their players were jetting in to the UK just a few days after 30th July.

Our friendlies were mucked around of course with the pull out of both Fleetwood & Stockport, which left us reeling a bit as we had to find other opposition very quickly.

Anyway, glad to see the back of them, and it's time to look ahead now to the bread and butter, as the league gets underway tomorrow, and it's been a busy old week this week, with football yet again dominating everything!

Last Saturday of course was the friendly against Bangor, and my time to stand in front of the players in the changing room - not to give them a pre match talk you understand - no this was to give them a bit of a media chat, and what I was hoping for them to do to give the fans some good features in both the programme and also the new website which we'll be launching very soon.

It was a bit never wracking, and I sort of felt like a supply teacher, with the fear of being heckled in their, or thrown into the cold bath - thankfully none of that happened, and they all listened to what I had to say, so thanks lads!

Was this the Bangor massive?

The game last Saturday was a good open one I thought although not impressed whatsoever that we had to open the West Stand for away fans only, based on the fact that Bangor fans had previous - we counted about 49 Bangor fans through the gates, a whole stand opened for 49 people, a stand that had to be stewarded for that very reason, costs costs costs.

Anyway, the match passed without incident, and an entertaining 2-2 draw was played out, and plenty of talking points from the match with some cracking goals.

Onto Monday, and after work, and a few e-mails / cfu calls to make, off to the near on 4 hour board meeting - as ever, plenty of things discussed, debated, and actions to be taken by all, most notably to pick up a bottle of wine on the way home, thank god they stayed open late these days!

Then Tuesday, and another match, this time against Hyde, and this one was very low key, we knew that this game would produce the lowest crowd of pre-season, as I said above, I think we were all fed up of friendlies by now!

Never have I seen a game where Chester had so many chances in the first ten minutes, and had we taken just one of those chances I reckon we'd have ended up with a different score. I sat with Alan Tarbuck most of the night, discussing the various chances, but it was all positive with the chances being created.

Cracking finish by Simmo...

Then a cracking goal by Simmo, who exchanged passes with Alex Brown before picking out the corner of the net, and we seemed set for a win, until two goals in a short space of time turned the game on its head, and we were all of a sudden losing our 3rd game of pre-season, totally undeservedly in my view.

Onto Wednesday, and a chance to key some more CFU membership forms, we're now heading towards 2000 which is a great achievement considering it's difficult to retain members when things are going well as it's the nature of the beast that when things are going wrong, i.e. crisis times, people tend to pull together more, but I'll keep on banging the drum as the more people that join, the better.

Thursday, and time for the Seals Podcast to return, and I'd been delighted to accept an invite to the first show back, I remember when I sat on the very first show last season, with Tom Jones, and we both thought this could go places, and boy did it!

Last night also featured the Bellis Brothers, sounds like a 70's tribute band that, but no, Richard & Neil have come up with a new fanzine, called "The Blue & White" and I've had some interaction with the two lads, who have put a great deal of effort into the new mag, which is out in time for the FC United game on August 24th.

Looking forward to seeing the result of their efforts, and hopefully it will successfully follow in the footsteps of Hello Albert & The Onion Bag, which became legendary fanzines at Chester.

I did some dodgy predictions in last night's live podcast, from memory I think I said 2-0 v Rushall (Simm first scorer), 5-0 v Burscough (Horan first goal), 1-0 Hednesford (was it Wright first goal?), and 3-2 v FC United, although my enthusiasm got the better of me here and I predicted Robbie Booth would score the winning goal in the 90th minute, I forgot we were supposed to go for the first scorer!

It's now Friday morning, and plenty to do today whilst at work, all done in breaks of course (!) - press pass requests to deal with, also the match schedule for tomorrow to draw up - we've got a Junior Blues Guard of Honour tomorrow, and also the visit of Ray Crofts, who without any doubt was our last popular chairman (at least one who didn't turn on the club's own fans!), so it will be great to see him back!

Til tomorrow then!

Tyre Pressure & the Power of Twitter!

2011-08-03T07:11:00.001+01:00

Not my actual car!

Last night, I was hoping for a nice quaint trip to Stalybridge for the game against 'Celtic' and so after finishing work a little later than planned, I still managed to make an early start from Chester, looking forward to the game and catching up with Jim Harvey.

All had been going well, listening to Talk Sport on the way, with the usual controversial subject of the day being very entertaining, and then time to make a few phone calls - hands free of course - and whilst on the phone to one just heading past the M6 junction, an almighty bang, then the worst case of vibrations experienced since the Ann Summers shop opened up in Chester!

Luckily I was in the slow lane, as I had to pull on to the hard shoulder, and with every bang you do of course think that your car has given up the will to live - especially when it's a 10 year old Saxo, but hey it's only done 30k miles (hence the reason why I bought it!), but when something goes wrong with a car I always fear the worst.

So, stepped out to assess the damage and thankfully the engine hadn't gone - always my first concern, and then looked down to a sorry looking front wheel which had pretty much exploded!

So, being the car mechanic that I am certainly not, I surveyed the damage and though, "shit, I may have to change this" - now I'm not the most gifted when it comes to cars, and all previous cars of mine have had a spare wheel safely stored away in the boot, but this one...underneath - hmmmm.

I got back in the car to gather my thoughts, and thought I'd send a tweet looking for assistance - out of hope more than anything else! Unfortunately in the Saxo, I'd not got breakdown cover - typical, if I'd used the other car, I would have had.

With lorries and cars breezing past me at speeds of over 70mph, and my arse twitching as each one went past, I decided to make a couple of calls, the first was unsuccessful, then the next would be using one of those emergency phones on the road that I thought I would never use!

As soon as I picked the phone up it was ringing, cool. Then answered straight away by a fella from the Highways Agency who then told me that no-one could come out to fix it, but they would tow me to a garage to sort it out tomorrow, with the match at Stalybridge kicking off in just 90 minutes, being towed to a garage was not on my radar - but it would have been completely off the radar if what happened next hadn't happened.

On my way back from the Highways Agency phone - who by the way told me that I had 2 hours to remove my car from the hard shoulder or it would be towed away anyway, and charged for it in the process, all this whilst seemingly standing in an infestation of ants - the kind that looked like those off I'm a Celebrity, in fact I ended up showing more footy skills than David Beckham booting them away!

So, I decided that I'd try and make a few calls to avoid being ripped off, and on the way back from the phone had a black Vauxhall Corsa blast past me tooting their horn (thanks Jay!), and then when I'd given up all hope, up popped a Blue car, and it was none other then the Whelans, and Matty had checked out his Twitter to see that I was stranded - okay, I'd had a tyre pop, but to me anyway I was stranded!

Thankfully out popped Steve from his car, and came over to help me with my problem, and ten minutes later the wheel had been replaced, he made it look so easy, and it probably was to him and any other like minded person, but to me it was a nightmare.

I managed to drive off and take my time, and thankfully get to Stalybridge in good time - thank god I'd set off early - and arrived to be offered a cuppa by one of the home officials, but instead all I wanted was a sink so I could wash!!

Being the Tweeter for the night for ChesterFC it was then time to quickly pick up the team sheet, but as Paul Wheelock from the Chron had already tweeted the team news, I decided to take the easy way out and retweet it - yep, the lazy option.

In fact the rest of the evening it became a battle of who could get the match news out the quickest, but Paul won it hands down - and I gave in due to the fact that typing on a pc is much better and quicker than typing out tweets on a HTC phone, especially one that was rather annoying on the predictive text!

So, the match was a fairly open one, and two goals in the first half did the damage, and that damage also ensured my final bodge of the night, when what was supposed to be my final tweet of the night I stated that we'd won the second half 1-0, completely forgetting that we'd actually drawn it - oh well!!

So, all in all a nice evening weather wise in Stalybridge, complete with a king sized sausage & bacon bap for £2.80, which more than made up for the result last night.

Next stop...Bangor City - thank god that's at home though!

Thanks to The Whelan's for being the (Blue and) White Knights of the Road last night!

A warm return to the Sunny Exacta

2011-07-28T07:10:00.002+01:00

Well following a very difficult week personally in the Banks household, it was a case of getting suited and booted again on Tuesday night for the Southport friendly, and getting back in to the swing of things, it was the first game I’d been at since the Tranmere win.

It was a pretty warm evening again, so it felt quite hot in the ‘ill-fitting Matalan suit’ – and as soon as I was through the doors it was time to get straight into it and get into work-mode but at the football. First to meet the Southport officials who were in the Boardroom, nice people. Then, off to see how our media peeps were, and a quick chat with them to see how things were progressing, especially Blues Live, who are getting bigger and bigger this season, and with the support from the Chester FC Exiles, the product should become better and better as time goes on.

A quick chat followed with Cleggy and also Dan Burns, who will be taking to the pitch for the pre match / half time entertainment we have planned this season at the Exacta, and as Dan is connected to the club’s media side already via the Seals Podcast, it gives us an extra dimension, and hopefully Dan will be able to bring some of those top 10 players of the Decade that was announced on the podcast recently.

The media side of the club will start to gear up again for the start of the season, with hopefully some more interviews with Colin Murray along the way, and also more coverage on other outlets. The Friday Night Football Show is expected to make its return on Friday 12th August, the eve of the new season of course, so keep your ears out for that one, with no doubt a Cilo Green (sp) or Take That tune thrown in too!

As always with most friendly matches, the atmosphere was pretty low key, more akin to a nice evening in the sunshine, and enjoying that, but that all came to halt as Wildey suffered his shoulder injury, so I went down to see what was happening following the long lingering trudge off the pitch, and it was obviously a shoulder problem, and to say he was gutted in the treatment room was an understatement.

Will Osborne and the paramedics were certainly kept busy, and the decision was made to send him to hospital, not what we wanted to see, but neither was the bump sticking up out of his shoulder!

Having text him yesterday morning, Wildey is definitely gutted about what appears to be a lengthy lay off, but he's asked me to thank everyone who has sent him good wishes, hopefully we'll see him back sooner rather than later, but what it does do is open the door of opportunity for the other strikers at the club, and we'll certainly be expecting them to step up to the plate.

The match itself was disappointing too with Southport taking the lead on the stroke of half time, but there was such a great chance to level things up through Jerome Wright in the second half, and I think we all held our head in our hands when that went over the bar!

Southport then took a grip on the match, and there was no way back for us, but as I pointed out to others, we lost 2 pre season friendlies last season and went on to win the League, so I'll settle for the same again, but would prefer it if we just lost the one game in pre season this time around.

So, back in to the swing of things again, and plenty going on as we build up to August 13th.

One thing last night annoyed me, and that was the ridiculous post on DevaChat concerning Gary Kent, with the poster claiming:

Mr Gary Kent treated with such contempt by Chester FC officials/directors can no longer be an employee of Chester FC (CDHT) from September.

Mr Kent has seen more owners and directors come and go than the current board put together yet cannot agree with what is currently happening at the club.

I feel the supporters do not own this club - a select few have made it their own.

Well all I can say is that this post is laughable and downright insulting, and after a reply I decided to log off DC for the rest of the night. I remember I had an honest chat with Gary Kent when the original CFU boycott was taking place, and when he wasn't being paid by SV. We had a good hour on the phone one night as Gary couldn't see why we were boycotting home games, but after the reasons were pointed out, and our plans - which included keeping Gary on as Groundsman - he saw what we were trying to do, and following that conversation, I had a number of good chats with Gary and how he was pleased how things were going.

This post also came as a surprise to me, as only at the board meeting on Monday night were the board advised that Gary was retiring in September - I think it's fair to say we were all surprised, but we all appreciate what Gary has done in the last few decades as Groundsman, and we'll certainly give him a great send off, but "treated with contempt" and "cannot agree with what is happening at the club" are just way, way off the mark.

The supporters do certainly own this club, and many are helping in their own way to run it, volunteering their own services in various places of the club, maybe the original poster should stand for election to the board and then he could see just how much we appreciate everyone's help in running the club the way it should be. Maybe he could sit in the office taking calls, maybe he could pick up rubbish after the match, maybe he could clean the toilets, maybe he could help behind the bar, maybe he could help in the club shop, maybe he could help by being a steward, maybe he could jump inside the BiG Lupus outfit, maybe he could help stuff envelopes, maybe he could run around like a blue arsed fly on match days making sure that everything is going according to plan. We may be the ones in suits on match days, and that's because we are making sure this club looks and acts professional, but believe me, we are 200% appreciative of everyone's role at Chester FC, and there are nearly 2000 owners of the club, who I'm sure are extremely proud of it.

Don't you just dislike people that try to put the club down at every opportunity?

To that poster, try getting off your arse and doing something positive for the club. Many have done, and many will still do, and all take pride in what they do to help. They have been insulted by this remark too.

Right, off my soap box now, I'm going to work...great.

Friday Night Football to return to the Exacta!

2011-07-20T07:06:00.000+01:00

Superb goal by Joe Ormrod

What a week it's been, sadly I missed the FC United match due to being away in London all weekend for Mrs B's birthday weekend, but kept in touch via the Twitter feed, and was delighted to see that the lads kept up the 100% pre season record, with a 'come from behind' win - and even better to see that Joe Ormrod scored a cracker on his debut after making the step up from Chester FC Youth last week.

The weekend also saw our pre-season plans being disrupted, thanks to a couple of teams. First of all after setting up a match against Fleetwood on July 23rd - they then ended up going and setting up a match of their own on July 22nd, which made it plainly obvious that they were then only going to send their young kids, something that we were not prepared to see as a fixture, and so the fixture was pulled.

Are you Phil Thompson in disguise?

All through July there has been much discussion over the Stockport friendly, and it's fair to say that we were 'monitoring their situation' very closely indeed - we all know who was 'rumoured' to be linked to their club, but you can go changing fixtures around without knowing full facts, and Didi Hamann confirmed that despite cancelling other away friendlies, he wanted the Chester match to go ahead.

That match would have been discussed further in time, but then Stockport then advised us that they were pulling out of the game, quite insulting really knowing that it didn't leave much time to sort out another game, bear in mind that 99% of teams already have a friendly set up for that date - shame we didn't book Accrington Stanley in instead hey!

People will ask why we need to play so many games at home, it's simple, we have money to raise in our pre-season games as part of our budget, so to have pre-season messed around the way it has been is rather annoying not just to us, but to Neil Young who will have been gearing his team up for these friendlies.

It's not been easy to get friendlies booked in against the 'big' teams, with many of them sorting out their schedules well in advance, and despite us requesting 'glamour' friendlies against some big clubs, it just hasn't happened for one reason or another this year, although a large part of that is the fact that virtually every Premier League club has left the UK for a tour elsewhere, and the further they travel the longer they need to prepare & recover, hence the lack of dates available, but again it's something we'll look at for next year, and I'm confident that we'll have a friendly or two against Premier League opposition next season.

We have of course a game now against Airbus on Friday night, and one to look forward to, it will certainly be one for Ash Williams to look forward to given his move from The Wingmakers last year, and another good chance for fans to see the Chester lads who are doing well this time round as well, and it showed how much the lads want this, by their performances against Tranmere & FCUM (okay, I'm basing my thoughts on FCUM from the NATV clips, but it looked like we were up for it!).

Looking forward to getting back to it all on Friday night, and hopefully a third win in a row for the Blues!

Football's back at the Exacta!

2011-07-14T06:57:00.000+01:00

After what seems an eternity, football eventually re-appeared at the Exacta Stadium on Tuesday night with a visit from an extremely strong Tranmere Rovers side.

Exacta looking good again

It was great to get back in to the swing of things, although with all the planning and meetings taken place in the summer so far, it doesn't actually feel like we've stopped or had a break, but everyone - including me - felt the excitement of seeing the lads and in particular the new signings, on the lavish green grass at the Exacta.

They didn't let us down either with a good performance that saw them take the game to Rovers, remembering that Tranmere were four leagues higher than us, and what a goal from Wes Baynes to clinch the win...stunning!

The preparations for pre-season have been going on for a while of course, and we have been trying to secure a pre-season friendly against Premier League opposition, but so far have been unsuccessful with most as they just don't seem to be able to fit us in to their hectic schedules - talks are still ongoing with a couple of them, but they may not come off this year, there is still a small possibility of it happening though, so I won't write it off completely.

We have of course got many home games in our pre-season line up and that will of course benefit the players - in particular the new lads - as they'll be able to get used to match conditions on the fantastic surface at the Exacta, again great credit to Gary Kent & CDHT for helping out there - it certainly looked good the other night.

BiG Lupus - a bit hot!

Off the field we've been very busy still at the club, and appearances at various fetes and events such as Chester Events, Blacon/Hapsford/Lache fetes, and many more to come - all promoting the Club and City Fans United/Junior Blues - it's all very important to keep that up - although I think BiG Lupus may have shed several stones in the last few weeks with the heat, in fact I think he may go onto the opposite of the Atkins Diet to build him up a little bit again!

It was great to see Andy Donaldson & BiG Storage sponsoring BiG Lupus again, Andy has certainly put his money where his mouth is since we reformed, and is a great credit to the Chester Business Community.

There have been a few changes around too based on fans comments, we have taken on board suggestions to have beer available inside the ground during matches, and we were hoping to start trialling that on Tuesday against Tranmere, but thanks to a delivery that never turned up, we were unable to start it, but it should be fine for the match against Fleetwood on the 23rd, which incidentally is our Chester FC Community Day, in which we hope to have the Army, Fire & Rescue, Police, and the North West Ambulance Service amongst others exhibiting in the Car Park, whilst there will be the chance to have a go at the Soccer Speed Shot, something to test your footie skills out on, and also the Chester FC Youth will be giving you the chance to take part in a penalty shoot out before you head into the Exacta. It all gets underway at 10am on the 23rd.

So, back to Tuesday, and I must admit it felt good putting the blue & white tie on again, the first time since the Town Hall celebration at the back end of May, but here we go again, maybe the start of another memorable season - let's hope so.

Can you hear me Cleggy?

The plan for the match day entertainment is always low key on the pre-season friendlies, and all we had planned for the half time sequence was the draw for 2 tickets to the Manor House Stables Box at Chester Racecourse, and that was going to be drawn by Tom Dascombe, successful trainer, but there was no plan for me to even talk at half time, but just as I was leaving the house I got a phone call from Jim Harvey asking if he could bring along 2 former Chester City players to the game, so naturally I said if we can get them on the pitch for a quick interview then yes!

And so, they did - to their credit, they looked as nervous as hell, so I kept the questions brief, as I said I wasn't planning to speak at all, but that all changed!

The sound system has long been a bug bear, and there were plenty of faults with it pre match - largely due to the fact that there had been so many Community games played in May, and plenty will I'm sure have fiddled with sound level buttons, which left Cleggy all over the place when he opened up, and plenty of microphone screeches, so for anyone blaming him, please think again, it really wasn't his fault!

What made it even harder for him was the fact that a team sheet had been provided, but when the substitutes were being made, the numbers didn't correspond with the actual players, and some didn't even have a number at all, which as you can imagine threw him into total confusion, as it would with anyone else, we were talking whilst one sub was taking place, and I jokingly suggested that we should get the Tranmere fans to sing the name of the player coming on, thankfully we didn't do that!

Although when the Chester substitution happened, and he changed the name about five times, I went in to the PA room and gave him the Alan Sugar look, and said, "Cleggy, it's with regret, you're fired!" - all jokingly of course, as the job he does is very good, and not just about talking in that room, he gets a lot of requests thrown at him in a short space of time, plus it's boiling in that little room!

So back to the game again, and I thought we did well in the first half, more than matching Tranmere, and putting some good moves together, and particularly liked the free kick that caught them cold, but sadly Powelly couldn't get it past their keeper, and the chance had gone.

Baynes...Boom!

Wildey was doing his usual role in shrugging off the defenders and making his way into the box and was unlucky not to score, but score was something Wes Baynes did, and what a way to score too, picking up a loose ball from 25 yards out before hammering one into the top corner, a great way to introduce yourself to the Chester fans, and especially after coming to the Blues from the dark side too, perfect way to start.

Tranmere had a couple of chance but bar the late flurry you always felt that we were in control of the game, and when the final whistle went, Les Parry came up to wish us all well, fair play he's a nice bloke, and of course was the first person to agree to a friendly last season when I was with him on Colin Murray's live show in Liverpool University.

Following the match, there were a few jobs to do, and great to see the Lounge was full of potential sponsors for next season, and a very successful night was had up there and many put themselves down for match sponsorship for the new season, and I'm sure Pat will reveal just how much in Saturday's programme, but there was certainly a large smile on his face!

Well that will do it for now, as got to get ready for work, but just time to refer to a nice little piece in the latest issue of When Saturday Comes, where they have a feature of fan owned clubs, and a nice picture of the open top bus in May.

More good publicity!

Chester FC 2010-11 Part 4

2011-07-06T07:24:00.000+01:00

Chester FC 2010-11 part 1

2011-06-17T19:50:00.000+01:00

Chester FC 2010-11 Part 2

2011-06-17T19:49:00.000+01:00

Chester FC 2010 11 part 3

2011-06-17T19:48:00.000+01:00

Promotion Party & Parade draws a line under the season

2011-05-26T07:16:00.002+01:00

What an amazing time Chester fans had last weekend, with the City Fans United Promotion Party last Friday night, followed by the Town Hall Civic Reception on Saturday which included the first open top bus tour since the 1970s featuring a winning Chester side on the top deck, complete with Championship trophy!

Friday was quite an eventful day to say the least, I'd been in touch with Daryl Clare as I'd invited him as CFU's guest for the evening together with his family. It was 12 months to the very date that Daryl had last been over for the Chester FC Re-Lanch at the Guild Hall, so what better opportunity for him to come over and see what had been achieved in that space of time.

I'd kept Daryl in the loop on how things were going as well as keeping up to date on how his career was going with Alfreton, who enjoyed promotion to the Conference this season. Daryl was certainly keen to come over and join in with our celebrations.

Oops, wrong Travelodge - nice one Jeff!

So, Daryl was booked into the hotel, and thought I'd give him the directions to the hotel, but completely forget that there were two hotels of the same chain in the City Centre, and yes, I'd given him the wrong hotel directions, so I got the call at just after 6pm on the Friday night with Daryl already walking through town from Pepper Street down past the Grosvenor Museum - the woman at Travelodge by the amphitheatre had told them it was only 10 minutes walk - what she didn't tell them was the best way to get to the Travelodge up by the Fountains roundabout!

I offered to go and pick him up, but as I was in the Saxo, it would have been a bit tricky to fit 2 adults, 3 kids, a buggy and a case in the car - Daz had already parked his car up in the car park by the other Travelodge so had decided to leave it in there overnight.

He declined the lift as he was happy for them all to have a walk up the road to the roundabout, but then I received a call back from him telling me little Courtney's CD was still in the car, so like a fireman running to his fire engine, here I was running to the Saxo - all ready for the Racecourse, but it was time for a slight diversion, so off I went picked him up and drove back to the car park, had a great chat along the way, whilst feeling a complete knob for giving him the wrong hotel directions!

Anyway, back to the hotel, dropped off, and then I made my way to the Racecourse for the do, had a good chat with Jonathan Legard who was hosting the evening, and began to relax, speaking to various supporters there on the night, and I'd decided that that's how I'd approach the evening, by catching up with many fans who I'd not had the chance to do a few weeks ago at the Club Awards evening.

It was a great night, with the CFU Player of the Year award going to Michael Wilde, the Away Travel Player of the Year going to George Horan, and the Best Dressed Award going to Gary Powell!!!

It was also great to see the Chairman of the Evo-Stik League along with the League Operations Manager attending the do to present Wildey with his Golden Boot Award, and with it a great speech by the Chairman who announced that we should never have been placed in that League, and that was greeted by an ovation by the Chester fans at the venue.

Courtney Clare - a star in the making!

Then we were tresated to a rendition of Danny Boy from the talented Courtney Clare, another reason why Daryl had brought the family over with him. Little Courtney has already wowed many with her singing, and the Pavillion Suite was certainly brought to a halt to listen to the 8 year old sing, and what a reception she got at the end of her song, a standing ovation!

Another song was to follow, and we really believe that she could go far, although I'm not sure where that voice came from, it certainly didn't come from her dad, although I joked with him the other day that he should get up and sing at the next do!

The rest of the evening saw a great quiz, where Michael Wilde showed us an impression of Iain Howard, and George Horan did the same for Carl Ruffer!

Then we had an amazing auction that saw Trevor Storton's shirt being auctioned for over £500 - amazing, and the very first yellow away kit for next season being bought for £210 - nice one Chris!

That topped off the evening, and I had to head home at that point, but the following morning was amazing too, and having got up early made my way down to the Exacta Stadium for the start of the bus tour. We were expecting the players to pack out the top of the bus, but a few late withdrawals meant that there were a few spaces left, so I took my place at the back of the bus, and when we got going from the Stadium, we passed a handful of people down Bumpers Lane, whilst the police then raced off to the traffic lights to stop the traffic, and let the bus make its way round onto Sealand Road - I think we were all rather cautious as the bus turned a corner, holding on tight!!

Mind the Bridge!

The bus eventually made its way up Canal Street which saw the first real load of fans waiting for us with flags, before we then turned on to Northgate Street to see the bridge above packed with people taking photos, and then passing that we then saw the crowds in the distance - we'd all wondered if it would be a half decent turnout, but I think its fair to say we were all left gobsmacked when we saw just how many people had made their way to the Town Hall - we felt like a Premier League team that had just won the title, or the FA Cup, as all you could see was a swarm of blue and white everywhere!

What a great sight!

The bus bypassed the Town Hall, before embarking on a trip down Werburgh Street, and one lady heading out of her workplace for an early brekky it would seem, shouted "Not being funny but who are ya?" in a big scouse accent, I shouted back "We're Chester!" with arms open wide. She then responded, "Ah, I'm not from round here", to which I sarcastically shouted back "You can tell!" given the strong accent, and lack of knowledge about the club!

Anyway, heading round Eastgate Row you could see the tourists thinking WTF?? But it was great that on Races Day we could give the City something different to celebrate, and when we made our way back up the cobbles on Northgate Street, people were hanging out of windows above shops to greet us, all that was missing was the ticker tape!!!

I'd been filming most of this as it was something I wanted to keep forever, and so glad I did, as it gave the different angle of the bus tour from the top deck, rather than the countless many videos taken from within the crowds.

The bus came to a halt and the players were quite rightly given a magnificent welcome by the crowd, and a few interviews were carried out - whilst I took the opportunity of grabbing the trophy and thrusting it in the air in celebration - have it!!!

So, in to the reception we went inside the town hall, where a couple of nice speeches were given by the Mayoress and also Mike Jones, and it really hammered home just how much we'd pleased the community with the efforts on and off the pitch this season and long may it continue.

The morning ended with the though, bugger I've got to get back to the Exacta now to pick the car up, and so I took the No 10A to Connahs Quay via Sealand Road, not quite as glamorous as being on the top of the bus, but a great chance to reflect on what had been an amazing day in the growing history of Chester Football Club!

Time for it all to quieten down? No, not really!

2011-05-16T07:01:00.000+01:00

It's been a couple of weeks since that amazing finale to our season, and the superb promotion party - part 1 at Chester Racecourse last Saturday night - what a do that was.

It was always promising to be a great do, the moment Colin Murray gave his thumbs up to hosting it, and what a job he did, and to be fair to him he was feeling worse for ware before the event, suffering from illness, and on the Friday afternoon I got the "bad news" call - I thought 'oh no, this is it, we're going to see our host pull out' - and to make matters worse we kept on missing each other's calls as I was down at Chester Races celebrating with the lads, when at the end of the afternoon I'd noticed the missed call!

Anyway, the voicemail was classic, "Jeff, I've got some bad news I'm afraid, but not as bad news as bad news could be, but it's still bad news" - I was already confused with that!

Anyway, I phoned him back and he told me that he'd been drafted in to do the Sunday afternoon show that he thought he'd got out of, and that meant that he had to be in work at 9am on the Sunday, add to that he was feeling rough, but he said he was still intent on coming up to host the event, and so he did driving up after his saturday show finished, and he would head straight back down to London from our event at 11pm - what commitment to the cause that was!!!

He did a great job, and some of the gags were classic, at one point I thought we'd hired a comedian for the night! The best thing though was that he was so down to earth and bring Perry with him was great too, who was well up for slamming those drinks down his throat!

Perry was sat on the same table as our Chairman, and it wasn't long before he came over to our table to speak to Colin telling him that the Chairman had said that there may be room for 3 people on the board so you know what Perry was thinking....I was busy thinking "oh no, what have I started here, Colin, Perry & Pat on the board???" - that would make board meetings interesting!!!

The night itself saw the awards dished out to the players, and Wildey & George definitely deserved their accolades, and now the battle is on to become the CFU Player of the Year, which takes place this coming Friday night, another event to be hosted by a top BBC sports person, this time in the form of Chester fan Jonathan Legard.

The best award of the night had to be the Clubman of the Year Award, which saw Richard Wightman voted as the winner of the award, and it was great to see Richard's mum Lesley come up and collect the award, I think it was fair to say that moment was so full of emotion for everyone concerned, but well deserved too.

You'd be forgiven for thinking that things wind down now that the season is over, well I wish that was the case, there is still so much going on, what with the CFU Promotion Party to be organised (and at this point I'll say that Pat Cluskey has done a great job with both Parties), and also the Open Top Bus Tour for the Saturday morning before the Races, it's still a busy time.

For me personally, it's been a nightmare last couple of weeks, with serious family illnesses dominating my life, and maybe I've put football ahead of that which at times is inexcusable I will admit, but people who know me will know that I'll always try and do my best to balance things up.

Looking at the forums in the last week has seen a huge debate on the pricing of season tickets and matchday admission, and a hell of a lot has been said, some healthy debate, others totally off the mark - and the fact of the matter is we discussed this in great depth to ensure we arrived at the right decision. It must be remembered that each one of us on the board is a big Chester fan, and we go through what everyone else goes through, we all have season tickets ourselves, and do what we do for the love of our club.

The decision arrived at therefore was to increase the prices slightly - and I do believe it's slightly, given the fact that it's a solitary pound on the Harry Mac - which is mainly where the younger people go, and £2 in the stands - mainly where a lot more of adults go, not that that's the reason for the increase - nothing like it at all, we're just looking at the future, and if we want to be challenging for promotion from the Conference in a few years time, then we have to be looking at full time football - that is going to be a key life-changing moment as far as the football club is concerned, and we have to be ready for it, we have to be ambitious.

If prices were kept as they were last seaosn, then we'll go into next season with the same budget for the manager to use, when we all know that wages will be higher as you climb the leagues, and in the conference you're looking at annual wage bills of £500k-£1m, so to prepare for that kind of money, we have to look at the long term strategy, I really don't believe the price increases are unfair, in fact I've spoken to lots of people and they really do believe that the prices are fair, and as all money is going back in to the club then they are happy to pay it.

We also asked in the survey last year if people would be prepared to pay more in order to keep the youth prices down, and a huge percentage backed this idea, this prior to this year's Census which saw another massive vote for raising the prices if it meant we could move forward again - the questions is over the word 'modest' increase - which I believe the increase is.

Another point was made that the prices should have been kept as they were 'as a thank you' to everyone, and again i refer to the point that we are all fans, who want the best for our club, and there are indeed other ways we can offer thanks to fans for the journey we are embarking on, like for instance the Club threw a party for the fans who have committed countless hours to the club, volunteering their time to clean up after games, working the turnstiles, selling programmes, running the shop, helping behind the bar, and many many more vital jobs that need doing, all because they love their club, and I know they appreciated it.

That's the way the Club should look after it's army of volunteers, and they will be represented at next week's Civic Reception at the Town Hall, not everyone will be due to the numbers allowed, but they'll be represented nonetheless.

We're also looking at the kids, as they have formed 30% of the support that the club has now got, I somehow think that if prices had been raised by £1 for them, and only £1 for the adults in the seated stands, then there wouldn't have been half the kick off that there has been, but we wanted to keep the kids prices as they are given that they are the future, and any rise for their prices would be unhealthy at this point.

The board will always be open to criticism, we have to make decisions, and so far most of them have proved to be the right decisions, the club is looking professional from top to bottom right now, and will continue to do so, but we must look to progress - looking at the Conference, many teams have got into it but not prepared for the step up, and hopefully when it happens, it will be a massive step up, but we have to be ready for it.

On the player front, it's been an exciting few days with the arrival of Jamie Rainford, I know Steve Ashton has done a tremendous amount of work with Neil on Jamie's signing, and it's resulted in Chester getting an excellent deal on the transfer, given that Marine wanted a lot more money for him last season.

I obviously won't go into the figures agreed, but to see £60k quoted was completely laughable, and should in no way be taken seriously, a bit like the fact that people believe some of our players are on £500 a week, two words..."Get Real!!!" - that really is complete nonsense - let's not forget Chester City FC were paying that for full time wages, well they should have been paying them I should have said, but our lads are on wages nowhere near that amount, and I'm sure they'd love to be on that kind of money, but they're not!

The transfers kept coming too, with Liam Brownhill's addition on Saturday, and another one in the pipeline at the moment, but as ever we'll stay tightlipped - we put a press release out the other day about Jamie Rainford, as the two clubs agreed the other day that rumours about the player were unhelpful, so we moved quickly to put that to bed.

Anyway, another week has passed at Chester FC, as the dust begins to settle on the promotion campaign, but as said, one more party to come, followed by the bus tour, and I think we better get that trophy in bubble wrap, and hope that we don't have a Real Madrid moment on the bus!

The Homecoming Party...

2011-05-05T07:19:00.000+01:00

After a break of a few days, time to catch up on Saturday's events at the Exacta, when Chester FC staged the Homecoming Party, and what a day that turned out to be - under gorgeous blue skies!

Get in there!

The day started with a photoshoot at 12noon, so straight to the Exacta to get there in time for the shot, and upon arrival many fans already waiting for the gates, and also the club shop to open, no doubt to snap up the Champions t-shirts that had been specially printed for the occasion.

Going inside the ground, and seeing the players, it was clear to see they'd had a big night out on the town as they were all hungover!

But fair play to them they then got changed, and were in their kit in no time and were getting ready to meet the fans for the celebration.

Then wondered outside with a a pint to soak up the celebratory atmosphere, and caught up with Shane from Dee 106.3, and Cleggy who were running the afternoon for us.

Looking a bit posh

The photoshoot took place before the gates were opened, and we had a good laugh on that one, and the board were invited to sit down on the seats with the squad being both behind and in front of us, and I was sat directly in front of Powelly and Chris Simm, so had to hope that nothing untowards was going on behind me, I didn't want a warm shoulder or neck!

Once that was done with the players headed back inside, and then the fans were all admitted and how fantastic to see over 1000 coming in to join in with the celebrations, it was such a good feeling, and thoughts were why didn't the club do this when the Conference was won in 2004? - It was an easy thing to do but it goes so far to reward the fans.

I then went to see the players at 12.50 just before they were due to come out at 1pm, and the funniest scene of the whole weekend greeted me when I entered the changing room, it was like a library, with all the players just sat there hunched over, hungover, and no music blasting out - I told them this was the quietest I'd seen them before going out on to the Exacta pitch!

Siiiiimmo!

Then back outside, and time to join Cleggy as he introduced the players one by one, and they all deserved the recognition they received from the fans - they were our champions after all!

Once they'd all got out on to the pitch it was time to take them round for their lap of honour with the trophy and it was great to see the players have so many photo opportunities with the fans.

After the lap of honour was complete, it was time for Shane & Cleggy to get going on the mike, and they did a great job, speaking to various people - I didn't really want to speak as my voice has been heard enough this season in other places, but Cleggy insisted, so a nervous speech in front of the Exacta Stand - I'd not been that nervous through all the other interviews I'd done!

This time he doesn't miss!

Then once I'd done that, I thought it would be a great idea if Wildey could have a chance to put that penalty miss out of his mind by taking one against Big Lupus, so I approached Wildey, who was a bit reluctant as his leg was killing but I managed to talk him round, and away we went - we would have gone to the home end, but the speakers were there, so off to the old away end for the pen, and Chester's number 10 made no mistake!

Once that was all done it was then time to mingle with the fans, whilst the players then signed autographs and spoke to the fans, and I took the opportunity to speak to Rich Wightmans mum, who wanted a photo of the board with her, so I suggested we stand in the Harry Mac next to Richie's flag, and that was a nice moment for all concerned.

After everyone had left the pitch there was still some work to do, as I'd arranged for ESPN Brazil to come down to the Exacta - they'd got in touch on Thursday about doing a piece on the ground, with the England-Wales border the subject, so I'd invited them down in the hope that they'd be joining in with a promotion celebration, but sadly their plan had been delayed, so they didn't turn up until everyone had pretty much left, but I still did the interview with them - with the trophy in my arms!

Never did I think that I'd ever be doing an interview for a Brazilian football channel, but hey this season has been amazing with various worldwide interest, I received a Congratulations e-mail from a French TV channel who'd done a feature earlier on in the season, and also this season we've had a Norweigan, Danish, and Middle East (Al Jazeera) tv crew with us - have to see who we can get next year!

That'll do for now, as it's nearly 7am, so time to get ready for work!

Championes Championes Ole Ole Ole...

2011-05-01T01:44:00.000+01:00

What an insane end to Chester FC's very first league campaign, but one that ends on a really high having secured the title following an unbelievable twist of events that no-one expected!

The build up to the big day was the feeling of confidence of going into the game at Garforth needing just a point but believing we'd get the three to make it 100 points.

The day itself started with the departing of the team bus from the Exacta Stadium at 10.15am, and many fans who were themselves jumping on the Hipkiss Express(es) were there in force already to wave the boys off!

We had a good laugh on the way, with the lads in great spirits, and every other car that went past the coach on the motorway seemed to have a Chester scarf in it, and many let us know they were Blues fans with the obligatory horn tooting!

The funniest thing on the way was watching Gary Jones engrossed in the royal wedding, apparently he's a bit of a royalist so was enjoying soaking the coverage on the tv - mind you half the team was too!

The coach then stopped for brekky at a Holiday Inn about 20 miles from Garforth where they all had a light breakfast before setting off again, and now the excitement started to begin in earnest.

We then approached the ground, and now the sight of Chester fans in their colours was there to greet us, and what a sight it was - it felt just like Cup Final Day when you see the coaches arrive at Wembley, well this was our Wembley for the day, and most probably the 44th Cup final of the season!

Straight into the ground then and time to sort out a few media duties before going outside and sampling the atmosphere - I was hoping to sample a pre match burger but that queue was too bloody long!!

So, went for a walk around the ground to speak to a few regulars, and catch up with people who I used to chat with so often, but through my role have hardly had time to do since the season started, so it was nice to catch up again.

It really was the longest wait for a match to start though, and a look at the watch showed it was only 2.15 - another 45 to go - sheesh, why is it taking so long???

Then, it was time to get into my seat in the half decent stand that a lot of the Blues fans were situated in, and get behind the lads for what we hoped would be the championship winning performance and result - well what the hell, just the result would do!

No further had we kicked off it seemed that the first 'tweet' came in from Frank Hughes at Skelmersdale telling us that they had gone 1 up - no problem I thought, was half expecting that, then came 2-0. Hmmm.

The news then came through that it was 2-1, so suddenly Ossett were producing a fightback to help us out, not that we needed it as we were doing okay, creating a few chances, but not looking in trouble.

Then just before half time Asp lobbed a nice ball through to Powelly, who turned on a sixpence (often used commentators line there!) to hammer it home and put us into the lead - his fourth goal in four games, not a bad record for a lad who seemed to be getting hammered for some of his earlier performances, a tad unfair I'd say considering he'd only played about twice!

So, in at half time 1 up, with the news that Skem had grabbed a third - no problem, we were winning and it would mean Garforth would have to score twice to stop us winning the league, it looked unlikely didn't it???

During the first half the PA announcer said that he'd keep us up to date with the score at Skem, but as soon as he blurted out the early goal for Skem, we told him to put a lid on it, as we didn't need the lads distracted by that all match - just as well really considering what followed in the 2nd half!!!

Half time, and a quick breather - glass of water, happy that we'd gone in 1 up and were just 45 minutes from glory, it was a nice feeling.

Out for the second half then, and ready to go, only the substitution for Garforth seemed to galvanise them, and soon enough tweets were coming through from Skem that it was 4-1, then 5-1, and all of a sudden Garforth drew level.

It got worse of course, when Skem knocked in a sixth goal, and the unthinkable happened...Garforth scored to put themselves 2-1 up, a great goal, but one that completely knocked the stuffing out of us.

Suddenly, we were up against it, and when the news that Skem had gone 7-1 up came in, I began fearing the worst, could our dreams be in tatters??

Up popped the news that Ossett had pulled one back, so 7-2, and so it was back to 2 goals required for Skem IF we lost our game, what we had to bear in mind though was of course that we could not afford to concede another goal AT ALL.

I took a quick look around and I don't think I've seen so many people looking at watches and mobile phones to try and get updates, then someone shouted that it was now 8-2 but all eyes were on Neil who had someone at the Skem ground, but before we could get any signal from Neil, it was then 'apparently' 8-3, the emotions were now horrendous, I felt physically sick at this point.

Peterborough 2000 - horrible

Neil then looked up and signalled that it was still 7-2, and couldn't understand where other scores were coming from, but I guess we'll just put it down to those bizarre but really unhelpful 'last day rumours' - I think we all remember what happened in 2000 when someone jumped up mistakenly believing that a goal had gone in at the Shrewsbury v Exeter game, and we were 'apparently' safe, so we HAD to find out what the real score was.

It was 2 minutes before the end of the game, and we made our way down to the tunnel, and our game was all of sudden coming to an end, and we'd fail to find that equalizer, with the lads clearly affected by what was going on at Skem.

Neil then signalled that there was 6 minutes of injury time at Skelmersdale, so we then knew our fate, if Skem scored another 2, it would mean play offs for us, this was just unbearable.

After a few minutes I walked over to Neil, to find out, my timing was great as he turned round and said 'We've done it' before the celebratory pitch invasion took place - I'm not the strongest of lads, but I just lifted Youngy in the air in sheer delight, as we had done it, clinched the title in amazing circumstances.

For you Richie!

It was all full on celebrations from that point, and after several hugging of players, and fans, it was back to the tunnel where 'calm-as-you-like' Pat Cluskey was handing out the 'We did it Rich' t-shirts, which we were desperately hoping we'd be able to wear in memory and tribute to Rich Wightman, and I swear it was Rich who played his part by getting us over the line, under a gorgeous blue sky on Friday!

The singing fan in me came out as I joined in with just about every song that was being sung, but I was absolutely shattered at the same time, with adrenalin keeping me going!

It wasn't long before the trophy was held aloft and that signalled the first achievement of our proud little club, with an amazing 2300 fans that had turned the M62 into a sea of blue and white, I don't think that estate in Garforth knew what had hit it!!

Just before getting on the coach it was time to grab a Championship winning burger, one I'd been craving for all match, but knowing if I'd have had one at half time, I probably would have been sick in that 2nd half, so now I could enjoy my favourite match food - none of this prawn sandwich stuff for me thanks!

The journey home was a quiet one personally as I just felt drained, but the lads at the back of the team bus were going for it good style, with plenty of signing going on.

One funny moment was Wildey asking if we had actually won the title as he'd heard that Skem had scored enough to win, we told him that the trophy wasn't going back now!!!

It was also broken to Wildey that he'd won the golden boot so that delighted him, and Chester's number 10 was in good form for the rest of the night!!!

Back to the ground, and time to film the homecoming, but from an inside the coach point of view rather than the fans outside seeing the bus coming in, and Big George was there with the trophy straight away to show it off to everyone - how good though, a Chester lad holding up a Chester FC championship trophy - sweet.

It was a great day, and then the official homecoming party, but I can't summon up the energy for that write up now, that will have to wait!!!

Well done you Blues!!!

Two down, One to go....

2011-04-28T09:32:00.000+01:00

What an amazing few days it has been.

Last Friday, we were all getting pumped up for the game the following day at home to Bamber Bridge, and hoping the lads would be able to take advantage of a slip from Skelmersdale, and take advantage they have done, coupled with Curzon Ashton taking a point at Skem last Saturday, and then the boys destroying Fylde with a majestic second half performance, the Blues have one hand on the trophy.

Firstly, going back to last Saturday, I think we all hoped that we could break the 3000 attendance barrier at the Exacta, and the beaming face of Mark Howell confirmed that with we were going to do just that - what we didn't expect was to hit 3,300 - which just goes to show that anything is possible if you market it properly.

Get your flags out for the lads!

I must say I was absolutely taken aback by the superb flag arrangement in the main stand when I took a look outside, I have never seen the place looking so good, and credit to new Community Fundraising Officer Ann Wiggins, and Commercial Manager Paul Bodman for their efforts in putting those flags out.

Whilst the lads were getting their first taste of the pitch I jokingly shouted to Adam Judge & Greg Stones that their job was to sign each and every one of the flags - you can imagine the response that got!

Anyway, a quick visit to the Blues Bar and woah, you couldn't move, the Man Utd v Everton game had brought everyone down extra early it seems, and the place was absolutely buzzing, and at that point I just knew it was going to be a great day.

There was plenty to do pre match, and as ever it all seemed rather hectic, but plough through it we would. First job was to get all the details of the pre match plan, and run through with Cleggy, who would then ramp things up before kick off - we'd put a few extra dramatic 'ramp up' tunes in there too to drum up the atmosphere.

Famous Five - together again

Then time for me to meet the Famous Five for the first time (aside from Elfed Morris & Gary Talbot), and incredible that Micky Metcalfe had flown over from Gran Canaria especially to be here for the game, and to meet up with his former colleagues. Before I forget I must say this, I bumped into Gary Talbot yesterday at Tescos and he said that Mickey was so blown away by Saturday, that he wanted to know how Chester had got on at Fylde as soon as the final whistle went - yet another example of the 'Chester FC effect'.

Anyway, back to the Famous Five, and a quick shake of their hands, followed by a quick plan of action for what we wanted them to do - which was to recreate that famous photo, with them all kicking balls into the net in front of the Harry Mac (okay last time was Sealand Road but we'll ignore that part now as it wouldn't have been much fun recreating it in front of the new Tesco Home store would it??), and when we led them out the reception was perhaps one of the best I've ever heard at the ground.

So, we walked them over to the goal, and each of them took their place, stepped up, and to a brilliant Harry Mac Terrace, each took their kicks, and all but one scored, we'll gloss over that, but suffice to say they all had a good laugh about it, and had the obligatory photo - and then made their way back.

At this point the Junior Blues had already formed their guard of honour for the first team's arrival, but what better tribute than to have each of the Famous Five walking back through the GoH to take even more fantastic applause from the fans.

So, then time for the lads to come out, and to what I believe is the best reception in a long long time at home, obviously the Scarborough game in 2004 with a full ground was probably the last time, but this one seemed so much better for different reasons, this is everyone's club now, and everyone knew the part they had to play in raising the roof to help the lads.

The game started well enough, and then the magic started when in the 13th minute a beautifully lofted ball from Michael Powell found Simmo and he and the keeper clattered into each other, but Simmo got up the quickest to knock it in for a 1-0 lead and the place erupted once more, I think I was down by the tunnel at the time dancing a jig of delight!

Then we should have had a penalty, and everyone became incensed that it wasn't given, and Neil made his feelings known and the ref was called over by the linesman, who then went on to send Neil to the stand with no hesitation, not even a talking to!

The rest of the half seemed a bit cagey after that, but then Powelly rose to meet a Boothy free kick and suddenly it was 2-0, and time for everyone to go beserk again - I was up at the top of the stand for that one, such is my inability to stay in a seat during a match!

Cleggy chill-axing with the Blues Live boys pre match

Half time came round, and I knew we had lots to do, so I took the Famous Five down to the pitch so that Cleggy could fulfil his dream and have a chat on the pitch with the players he adored in the 1960s - Cleggy doesn't half come in for some stick, unfair stick, you should see what he has to contend with before, during, and after matches, and trust me he is the right man for the job!

The second half seemed more of a formality and eyes were constantly checking mobiles to see what was going on at Skem, with the answer being a 1-1 draw and this time there was no late drama as time ran out on Skem, and the Blues were3 points clear once again as the final whistle sounded.

I was down at pitchside at that point as the Lap of Honour was due to take place of course, we just decided to get on with rather than keep everyone waiting, and my thoughts were just elation that the day had gone so well, as myself & Pat guided them round to make sure everyone got to see the players & management team.

Once the game had finished, some duties still to do as Chris Simm came up for his man of the match award with the sponsors, and as per usual once the photos were done upstairs, it was time to take him downstairs to the Blues Bar, and take the applause of the fans down there.

Then a couple of people asked if I could get the autographs of the Famous Five, and they were so impressed with the whole day, they loved every minute, and yet another indication of what this club means to both current and former players alike.

Time then to chill with a pint with Mrs B - I've made reference to my wife in several places as this last 12 months has been possibly the hardest in my life, whilst setting up the club and looking forward to the first ever game, we lost a baby, and seeing what she had to go through was very very painful indeed, and will stick with both of us for the rest of our life. I'm a very lucky person to have someone who whilst not liking football, helps out at the club at home games, and is sharing the pride of what has been achieved at Chester FC.

Back to the football though, and after having a few glasses of wine at home on Saturday night, it was time to start thinking about Monday's game at Fylde.

We knew that a win against Fylde would put us in great shape for the last game, and we hoped (but did not expect) Prescot to get anything against Skem in their match.

On the Hipkiss Express, there's a jolly hostess

I jumped aboard the Hipkiss Express on the way up to Fylde, and had a good chat with several regulars, all enjoying talking about the good times we've had this season, and where we can go from here. It was great arriving at Fylde - I'd missed the Cup game, so this was my first visit, and dropped off at the pub before the ground, well there's no better place for a drop off is there, especially on a sunny day - the only problem being five coach loads of people arriving at the same time, and most looking to get a drink from the bar!!!

The pre match build up was good too, and I took a bit of time speaking to various people in the crowd whilst soaking up the rays before kick off, and the customary pre match burger (or two!).

The first half was a tight affair, and with the news that Skem were leading at Prescot, we then saw our boys fall a goal behind, and all of a sudden everyone in the ground was working out the permutations, and knowing that as it was standing, we'd be level on points with Skem.

Get in Boothy!

We need not have feared, as a brilliant second half display saw Chester win 3-1, and the scenes at the end were great, with people jubilant at what was very nearly a title triumph, it wasn't of course and we have to be reminded of that - but that victory was huge, and means just the one point needed now to secure the championship - a defeat could even be enough, but we won't even consider that an option as we know Skem could and probably will run up a few goals at home to Ossett - it's great though knowing that there are still targets to be hit, 100 points for the team, and the golden boot for Wildey!

The journey home was a fun one, as I went back on the team bus, and had a Non League Show interview to do, as did Neil just after 7pm, however, it was timed with half the lads getting off the bus at Haydock, and I could hardly hear a thing, but all good anyway - Caroline Barker and her team have been brilliant towards Chester FC and have followed us every step of the way, and I'm sure they'll be one of the first to send a Congratulations message through to us tomorrow if we do the business.

So, 6 days ago we were all looking forward to our last home game, and now today we're looking forward to what could be the biggest moment of our history so far, and as dates go, on 29th April 2010 we put our case to the Chester and Cheshire West Council to be the new tennants of the Deva Stadium - with some unwanted Danish opposition, but hey, just look at us now, we're sizzling!

Enjoy the match tomorrow, and as Perry Groves put it to me before Monday's game at Fylde...

"Play the game, not the occasion, and the League will be yours."

Come on you Blues!!!

The Night before the Big Day!

2011-04-22T21:05:00.000+01:00

It's been a nice week this week, with the weather being fantastic, and the lads being boosted by the midweek result up at Lancaster, there is a new feeling of optimism around the City again, just days after we were all feeling miserable after the match against Radcliffe, me more so perhaps as some kind soul decided to scrape their car across mine, well I say mine, it was actually Mrs B's car that got scratched - typical hey?

Anyway, back to the footie again, and the big match tomorrow - the last home league game of the season, it doesn't seem five minutes since they were stepping out against Trafford, but here we are, with a chance of finishing with a win and leave everyone on a high point - there is a strange familiarity to that Trafford game, with the Junior Blues all set to provide the team with a guard of honour tomorrow, just as they did back in September, and Colin Murray has been back in touch, just as he was in September!

We did of course want to sign off at the Exacta with a win to clinch or already celebrate the title, but that wasn't to be, so we're instead still fighting for the title with Skelmersdale, why us hey, why oh why are we the only club in the land to be over 90 points and scored over 100 goals this season to still be in a position where we cannot uncork that Champagne?

Reason is of course, Skem's major winning run that saw them win 13 out of 15 games, before they travelled to Lancaster, knowing that a win over the Dolly Blues would take them 2 points ahead of us but all on level games, and maybe that pressure started to tell on United, as they lost to a last minute goal - what a new hero Lancaster's Alex Johnson now is with the Chester faithful, and I'm sure he'll get a bottle of champagne himself if that turns out to be the difference come next Friday!

It's going to be a nervous time, but we're confident that we can stay focused enough to see this through, and win the title, we're all craving it so much that to not get there would be so disappointing - but we would of course not be out of it knowing we'd have the play offs at home - but let's not even consider that yet hey?

The time is now for the lads to step up and be counted, 3 wins and it's ours, it's as simple as that - you can't help feeling that a win tomorrow would put us in great shape for Monday's trip to Fylde, and with a bit of luck Curzon Ashton can put one over Skem tomorrow too, and give us the chance of winning it on Monday - that would be great.

Media wise it's been an interesting week. I was left unimpressed with the Chester Leader comments that were attributed to Neil, saying he was "finding it hard to stay positive" and on Tuesday the comments were "If I'm brutally honest with myself, I don't know what to do next" - these comments were at the end of a 10 minute interview, where Neil was insinuating that he hadn't thought yet about the next game, as it was too soon to even think about given what happened at Radcliffe.

Neil was obviously down after the 2-2 scoreline last week, we all were, but he could easily have called an end to that interview, but didn't, and maybe he paid the consequences with the last questions from a tiring day being turned against him. I registered my disappointment with the Leader about those comments, and said to them in a phone call that it was about time they nailed their colours to the mast and got behind us rather than just doing interviews, and turning comments around.

I was pleased therefore to see today's paper, whereby they sort of did that, but still not really - if you see what I mean.

The Chronicle have been exceptional in their coverage, and continue to back the club - and that is really appreciated by everyone at Chester FC - even when times are hard, they do their level best to get behind us for the next game.

I had a conversation with Colin Murray earlier today, and asked him to big up our game tomorrow against Bamber Bridge, and he understood the nerves our lads were displaying, but still reckons we'll go up - great to hear.

Nerves are definitely coming into play, and on Thursday night at training, the club had a sports psychologist in attendance, to help show the lads what great things they've done this season, and how they CAN cross the line as Champions - the players seemed to appreciate what was going on, and hopefully we'll see a really positive show tomorrow from the boys.

Also at training the other night was Grenville Millington, who had offered help to coach our goalkeepers, knowing how lonely it can be when keepers make mistakes, and I'm pleased to say Judgey was delighted with the training help on offer, again hopefully we'll see Judgey full of confidence again, if he is the main in between the sticks tomorrow.

We've made tomorrow a "Flag Day" and will be ramping up the atmosphere as much as possible to fill the place with positivity ahead of the game. We just want everyone to be right behind the boys as we go into our final game.

Well that's it for tonight, let's hope that this time tomorrow we'll all be talking about some great goals from the men in blue & white, and maybe the fact that we're only 3 points from winning the title.

Come on you Blues!!!