Mixed bag of results in opening week

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!

The fine line between success and failure

Just heard on Sky Sports News that 11 managers have been sacked since Christmas, an unbelievable statistic considering Christmas was barely 2 weeks ago.

Roy Hodgson was perhaps the biggest one the media have centred on with Liverpool obviously being one of the biggest clubs around, but Roy was only allowed 6 months in the job despite inheriting a side that was inbalanced thanks to the man the fans seemed to adore, Rafa Benitez - and yet towards the end of his reign at the club, he was booed, and many fans questioned his decisions.

Hodgson was never really given a chance, and quite openly said that he'd not received the backing of the fans from the off - he did of course back track that statement of course but the fact is he was right - Liverpool fans are best known for their patience, but slipping to four points above the relegation zone proved that they weren't staying patient this time, and the introduction of 'King Kenny' may yet be an inspirational moment of the season, but it could also go the other way given that he's been out of the game for 20 years.



Roy - he still scares the **** out of you!

 It wasn't a great week if your name happened to be Roy, with Ipswich manager Roy Keane getting the chop, but here you can say that the club was patient, giving him 2 years to turn the fortunes of the club around, and I think when he took over the board expected promotion, but in fact they have had the reverse, with ongoing battles against relegation, and a Cup defeat at the hands of deadly rivals Norwich this season probably didn't help matters one bit.

So, 11 managers have lost their jobs then, as Chairmen and Directors of clubs decide that they want a fresh face to give their club the push it needs to either get them up into promotion places, or to try anything to avoid relegation.

Here at Chester, we've seen our fair share of Managers come and go, with nearly 20 managers in one decade proving that Chester was probably the worst place to be if you were a manager - it certainly wasn't the safest place to be that's for sure.

The Dream Team get stuck to the dugout roof

Stability is the key for any football club, and right now we have Neil Young at the helm at Chester, when we made the decision to appoint Neil it was following a lengthy late night discussion between all the board members, and every angle was looked at, it really was the most important decision the board would have to make - the first Manager of Chester FC.

If it all went wrong then we would be accountable for the decision made, but we had belief in someone that had fought his way out of the league we're currently in, and he knew the League too, which is a massive bonus. It's all well and good going for someone who has management experience further up the ladder but would they know the leagues below them - no, probably not.

The results that we've seen so far have been nothing short of amazing - even though we've had a blip at home, you have to step back and look at the situation just a few months ago, whereby we hadn't kicked a ball, other teams in the League pretty much had a spine of players that teams would be built around, and had played together in past seasons, but here we were going from scratch, so being top at Christmas & New Year was just fantastic, and a real testament to Neil and Gary, and the rest of the management team.

Time will tell obviously if the nerve can be held for the remainder of the season - and I'm confident it can be - although the rest of the board are not being drawn into a belief that the League is already won, far from it. We're prepared yes, and will plan for the three scenarios that are possible at the end of the season, that being 1) winning the League, 2) going into the Play offs, and 3) not going up.

One example to look at is FC Halifax who started life in the same league as us, but in their first season only finished in the top 10, and didn't even secure a play off place, so we need to keep that in the back of our minds as a warning to us all not to expect instant success - we can all hope for it yes, but it's not a given, and we have to battle for every point, and that's why we need to get behind the side 150%.

Our position right now looks to be a straight dog fight between ourselves and Chorley, with Curzon Ashton dropping more points last night in perhaps a result that we weren't expecting, but I did say that Curzon would not win all their games in hand, they only have 3 now, and we still have to play them twice.

So, back to the original topic, managers, and Neil has certainly done extremely well so far, he's got us in a leading position at the top of the table, something we didn't expect, but certainly hoped for. Hope does develop into expectancy though, but we must keep focused here as the push begins, and I really think that once we hit that 50 point mark, a mental barrier will be removed for the lads, and the run in will really begin.

Last night, we held our first board meeting of the new year, and plenty to get through which culminated in a three and a half hour meeting, and there will be more on the transfer front today as Neil strengthens for the most important part of our season.

Jacko - coming to an Exacta near you

Something I wasn't expecting happened on the way to the meeting at the Exacta, as whilst driving there my phone went off, and it was the legend that is Peter Jackson, so had a good conversation with jacko - one of my heroes in the 90's, and pleased to say Jacko will be joining us in the near future at the Exacta as one of our Legends of the Week, and he's looking forward to coming over, and will I'm sure get a great reception from everyone.

That's it for now...

Come on the Blues!

A day for news stories!

Yesterday was certainly a busy day as far as the news stories was concerned on the official site, as there seemed to be more and more content coming available each hour!

The first news came in during the morning when it was confirmed that Jimmy McCarthy had signed for Chester, and interesting to read a few old news stories about Jimmy on the BBC website, one of which stated that he had been plucked from the pub league before heading to Crewe from Kidsgrove - let's hope that Neil has signed 'probably the best striker in the world' then!

Then, time for the post match analysis from Neil Young following the game at Ossett on saturday, and as always Neil was happy to talk about the game, picking out the various points for discussion from the game, and also looking ahead to the Sutton Coldfield game tonight, so time to load that up to the site.

Next up, an afternoon release as more good news came out of the club, with a new initiative that offers the chance to get youngsters from the local community into the club to have the chance to gain themselves national sporting qualifications - great to see this kind of news coming out of our football club, and also great to see Danny Jones involved again too.

So, left work at 4pm, and once home time to prepare for last night's City Fans United meeting, which was set to include the exciting SGM part(!), but before the meeting more news to deliver as the details of the new footy show on Dee 106.3 which will take place every Friday night at 6pm for an hour - myself and Chris Pilsbury will be joining Chester fan Shane Pinnington in the studio for the first edition this week, mind you if Chris rambles on for long, they'll have the adverts on before you know it!

Once the meeting had ended last night, we found out that Chorley had been beaten at Warrington which knocks one of their games in hand on us out of the way, the W's are certainly having an impact on Chorley's season, with the dropped points at Wakefield on Saturday, followed by last night's defeat to the Wire, and next away game for them is Witton, who do seem to have lost form themselves since we beat them in that crazy crazy end to a match at Wincham Park.

The Blues then can stretch their lead at the top to 9 points if we beat Skem on Saturday, and that would be a huge blow to our title rivals, but obviously we'll be keeping an eye on Curzon Ashton who have about 17 games in hand on us it seems - when do they ever play their games???

Looking forward to tonight's Cup match against Sutton Coldfield, who are making the journey up from the midlands tonight, with it being a Cup game, always a chance to relax and who knows, I may just end up on the Harry Mac again tonight at some point to watch the game from a different angle.

C'mon you Blues!

Improvements to Official site ongoing

Last night then the board meeting, which was a good three and a half hours, and many subjects raised and discussed, but as per usual some good debates, and some great ideas put forward to take on, watch this space - tell you what though, it wasn't half cold in The Blues Bar!

Well having had chance to take stock and look at the official site in greater depth this morning, a few amends were made to it prior to the old working day starting, and a chance to make it appear a little easier on the eye as far as the headings were concerned!

So, now we have CFC Stats, CFC Fan Zone, and Seals Lottery - hopefully most will know the fixtures, results, tables, players etc are all contained with that section now. Still, have e-mailed Pitchero to request a further change to a few different area of the website, so we'll see how we get on with that hey?

During the day today, we heard that the Newcastle Town game will now take place on Tuesday 30th November, so let's hope there are no crazy crashes on the motorway that night - for anyone who wonders why the coach went on the M56 in the first place, well it's because some players have to be picked up en-route, as they can't get down to the Exacta in time for the coach departure time. It's common place at this level but what isn't is the luxury of the coach, which was pretty decent to be fair.

Also, some more news that the Chester players along with Neil Young will be helping to switch the Chester Christmas lights on, let's hope that the weather is kind to them all - I think it was last year when it chucked it down, or was that the year before?

So, a couple of updates on the official site to do then, and after work a quick trip down to the ground, where filming was taking place for ITV, linked to Chester fan Ash Dolan, but I'll let him tell everyone about his moment, as he had the whole ground to himself with the TV cameras!

Looking ahead to tomorrow night, and the visit of Congleton, once again a Cup match, this time the Cheshire Senior Cup, and tomorrow night we have 18 businesses being guests of thebestofchester who have pulled together prospective fans & sponsors - more great potential for our growing club.

Interesting to find out from Neil today that Danny Meadowcroft is back for tomorrow night's game, one person who will be delighted is Rich Wightman, who sponsors him - hopefully he'll put in a great performance for Chester FC's very own sick note!

One match to watch out for tonight, Skelmersdale v Salford - come on City!!

That's it for tonight, time to shut the laptop down!