On The Road
RIVALS WREXHAM OFFER CHESTER A LESSON IN HOW TO SURVIVE AND THRIVE
THE hostility felt by Chester for the team across the Welsh border is so intense that one of their fans’ websites has a section called: ‘They’ve scored against Wrexham.’
One of the Welsh side’s few printable names for the old rivals is ‘ Jester Pity.’ Insults Chester reach for in response generally involve goats or sheep. It is hard to sustain that level of loathing when it is a fight just to survive. Chester are in desperate financial straits, six points from safety at the bottom of the national League and recently quoted 1-66 by one bookmaker to finish in the bottom four.
It comes to something when they can’t even sell their crossborder derby ticket allocation. Just 700 of their 1,100 quota went for this game.
The noise made by those who travelled and the first- half endeavour of the side they came to see spoke volumes for the spirit which can exist at the more impoverished end of the game. There was a performance of promise and elegance from 17-year-old Tom Crawford, a former Manchester City academy player pitched into central midfield. Floored by a challenge by Wrexham’s Sam Wedgbury with the game only six minutes, he was not intimated.
The Wrexham contingent offered choruses of ‘going bust’ as well as ‘going down’ but the English ranks launched into
God Save the Queen, just as they always have here, and were initially the better side. It might have been a different story had Chester’s striker Jordan Archer not headed over, when presented with the first half’s outstanding chance.
In that encouraging opening, you saw what will be lost if for a second time in eight years a team representing the city of Chester goes bust. The supporterowned club is down to its last £250,000 of cash and with monthly costs close to £90,000.
They say they’re trying to bring forward the second instalment of the transfer fee for Sam Hughes’s move to Leicester City. They might need the cash from that sell- on clause to survive. Their struggle certainly shows that being supporterowned brings no guarantees.
Wrexham will tell you that a highly organised supporter ownership is no panacea for glory, either.
It has been 10 years since they dropped out of the Football League and though they have always had a far bigger following than Chester — 4,000 most weeks, 6,511 yesterday — their first genuine play- off push in five seasons has been plagued by a struggle for goals.
This was a club-record 20th clean sheet this season. But nine matches in a 12-game unbeaten run before yesterday had ended in draws. Dropped points were creating a desperate need to ‘settle things down’, manager Dean Keates said last night. Experience told, in the end. The young Chester side were beginning to wilt when a sharp, left-foot strike from Wrexham’s on- loan no 9 Scott Quigley, just beyond the hour, had fans streaming down from the Mold Road stand to acclaim him. The 25-year- old forward has scored seven goals in eight since arriving from Blackpool in January. He had struggled to make any inroads into the game before the goal but his signing was inspired.
Wrexham — back up to fourth, with nine games to go — would not have been contemplating promotion without him.
Defender Shaun Pearson said the title was possibly out of reach. Others here still feel differently. The lead was doubled eight minutes later by nicky Deverdics, who found space and shot low beyond goalkeeper Andy Firth. It left Chester manager Marcus Bignot seemingly resigned to what is coming. ‘It takes a lot to turn performances into points,’ he admitted.
Despite Wrexham inflicting the first league double over the old enemy since 1976- 77, Chester fans will secretly miss them, in a perverse kind of way.
‘ They’ve always had more money and we’ve always had the spirit,’ said supporter Tony Halloway, remembering the 1995 Valentine’s Day meeting when his side were reduced to nine men and came back from 2-1 down to draw 2-2.
‘There’ll be no more of that now,’ he reflected. ‘We’re heading into obscurity.’