The highs and lows of being a Chester fan!

Well it’s been a while since I last blogged, in fact 11 days, so plenty to catch up with on all things Chester FC.




Travelodge Durham - a bit busy last week!

  It was great to see Wildey take the goalscoring charts by storm recently, and obviously at Durham where he grabbed himself a hat trick, scoring all the goals in a 3-0 win on the artificial pitch with many making the trip to spend the weekend up in Durham!

Then onto Fylde on the Tuesday night where Wildey was rested, and many were expecting a very close game with Fylde, and that’s certainly how it started with Fylde going close on more than one occasion, but then the goal from Kyle Wilson started the ball rolling for us, and it wasn’t long before the second arrived when Iain Howard netted to effectively kill the game.

Then up popped Robbie Booth to score a third goal, and well deserved given Boothy’s form recently, and that was it, job done, in the Cup Semi Final, against either Curzon Ashton or Lancaster City – time will tell on that, but the fact remains we’re one win away from the final!

The following day I did an interview for Goal.com which will hopefully be published soon – great to see another media outlet getting interested in Chester FC – and we have a Chester fan in Gazz Pashley to thank for helping to set that up.

Then on Thursday, the day everyone wasn’t particularly looking forward to – the day when we would say farewell to Rich Wightman, and a half day at work was followed by the funeral at Caldy Valley Church which was packed out, and that was replicated at Blacon Crematorium where everyone had crammed in to the small venue for the service – even the Minister taking the service was astounded at the numbers turning up for Rich.

Then back to the Exacta Stadium for the Wake, and spirits were lifted throughout the afternoon with the family being extremely appreciative towards Chester fans, that was Rich’s life, and I’m sure will continue to be up there as he looks down from above.

Is it a bird, is it a plane? No, it's Wildey!

So, after a draining day for all, back to the football, and on Saturday Rich’s family and friends – about 30 in all were there to see the Blues thump home 5 goals in an amazing second half period that saw yet another Wilde hat trick – it wouldn’t surprise me to see him run into a telephone box, do a few twists, and all of a sudden come out as the caped crusader!

Typically, I managed to miss his best goal of the afternoon having run into tell those still working behind the scenes that it was 2-0, all I heard was a massive roar before getting my vantage point, it was like one of those moments where you see your bus driving off in the distance just as you’ve turned the last corner for the bus stop!

It didn’t help that doorman Ed told me that it was one of his best goals, great – just great. Thank god for NATV’s highlights package hey?

Made sure Colin Murray was aware of the score, and he promptly replied by saying we need to keep hold of Wildey – now there’s an understatement of the year!

Following the match was of course ‘the queue’ for the Chorley tickets – having only been given 1200 tickets (1100 initially until we advised we would need more), there were 500 tickets going on general sale, and a queue that featured about 20 people in it just after 4pm soon grew to around 250 by 4.45pm, and by 5pm it had stretched to 450 – such was the demand for a ticket to the match at Victory park – let’s hope it’s us who are celebrating a ‘Victory’ at the ‘Park’ on Saturday.

I began counting the numbers in the queue to try and assure everyone that they would be okay for a ticket, but unfortunately I ended up getting into conversations with people, and that was it, lost my count so I’d have to start again!

Thankfully the queue never went beyond the 500 mark, and only 20 tickets were left to sell on Monday at the ground, which as expected were snapped up in 5 minutes!

Sausage & Chips - you just can't beat it!

 So, a great weekend was had with Chester winning by a 5-0 margin, sausage & chips on the way home before celebrating with a few glasses of wine – well more than a few, but still just managed to watch Match of the Day, albeit hanging on to whatever vision I had left after all that Pinot Grigio!

Yesterday was of course St Milner’s Day with Chester fans across the globe paying tribute to the man who rescued a point from the very large jaws of defeat at the Racecourse that night 16 years ago – I remember it well as I’d left my tickets on the dining room table such was the rush to get over to that place down the 483.

I remember the sinking feeling once I’d got the massive floodlights in range, but I had no alternative, I had to go back for them as I was not missing this game – so I flew down the 483 back to Chester – thankfully the police must all have been concentrating on other matters so they didn’t see me going at 116mph all the way back to Chester! (hope they aren’t reading this by the way!)

Anyway, made it back in time – just – and got to witness an incredible 90 minutes, where the Blues had 12 men to beat (that referee was just encouraging a riot wasn’t he with his decisions?) and whilst we didn’t beat Wrexham, that equalizer was like the greatest goal ever, and probably one of the most celebrated goals ever too!

Ooh Andy Milner, Ooh Andy Milner!

So, raised a glass to Andy Milner yesterday too!

Onto today, or tonight to be more precise and 3 points is the order of the day at Woodley Sports, who have been extremely welcoming so far, hopefully they’ll allow us to leave with maximum points tonight, although I don’t want any on the way home down the M56!

Come on you Blues!