Richie, Leigh, and Chorley!

Well what an emotional last few days it's been at Chester FC, with the sad passing of Rich, which I've already blogged on here.

Still smiling Richie lad!

It's been great to see Richie's mum the last few days and assure her that the club are going to do absolutely everything it can to pay tribute to the great man - we have a number of things planned, and we will of course have a minute's applause next Saturday (12th February) at the Exacta Stadium when we take on Clitheroe.

It's been very moving reading all the tributes that have been left for Rich both on Facebook and also at the Stadium gates where many have left flowers and scarves, and I'm sure there will be many more yet.

Turning back to footballing matters, and sadly Tuesday night we couldn't get that win for Rich, but we did manage not to lose a game that appeared to be heading that way up to the last 5 minutes after Leigh Genesis had scored with just 20 minutes left to play.

If only it were that light on Tuesday!

Getting to the ground was a challenge as I didn't have a sat nav to play with, so it was pure scribbled down instructions from Google Maps, and constant flicking the light on whilst driving to see where the hell I was supposed to be heading.

One embarrassing moment was when we were on the estate leading up to the ground, I pulled over as I saw two figures walking towards a house, having wound my window down I shouted "Oi hads, don't suppose you know the way to Crilly Park do you?" - imagine my shame when out of the shadows into the light appeared one of the 'lads' that was actually a young woman - ooops - should have gone to Spec Savers!

We didn't perform well at all on the night, and although the 'larger than life' goalkeeper Phil Priestley caught everything, we should have tested him more.

A few glancing headers went wide of the target when an inch the other way would have found the net, and Wildey tried his best to find a goal but it just wouldn't happen. Just when things were looking very very grim for the Blues, and with the light getting seemingly worse at the small ground, nice work between Iain Howard and Michael Wilde set up Chris Simm who made no mistake from 15 yards and we were back level again.

Up to that point I'd been standing on what must have been the coldest bit of concrete around, as I could hardly move when we scored - or was that in fear of jumping off the step into a massive pool of mud - I don't know!

So, we ended it 1-1, and kept our unbeaten record going and also the record of scoring in every League game this season so far too.

The next thing to happen was the Chorley saga, and the tickets were received for the away game at their place on February 19th - but all tickets were labelled up as £10 with no concessions.

Spotted in Lancashire, can you guess where?

This naturally didn't go down too well, and what made it worse is that Chorley became the only club this season to want to charge more for away fans than home fans, something clearly unacceptable in football.

If it wasn't bad enough to see kids being charged a tenner for entry, it was even worse to know that home fans would watch the match for £3 less and with better facilities than what Chester fans would get.

The Club made their feelings known on the matter, and we await to see whether the League agrees that this is unacceptable - there are rumours that a decision has been made and that Chorley will be made to sell all tickets at £7 - not just their own.

Chester FC travel to Durham this weekend, and the lads are staying over this weekend, so hopefully that will enable them to have a good go on the artificial pitch tonight before the main event tomorrow.

Let's hope for 3 points!

Come on City!