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Beesley seals win for Blues
Chester City finally got their first win away from the Deva Stadium, as they overcame a Gateshead side that included former Blue, Daryl Clare.
City's two new signings, Michael Coulson & Jonny Flynn both started the game, and Coulson went close to scoring on his debut, whilst Flynn will be happy to get off the mark with a clean sheet in his first game.
City's goal came through recent signing, Mark Beesley, who scored just over 10 minutes into the second half.
Despite plenty of shots coming in from Gateshead, the Blues held on for the first away win of the season, and completed the double over the Conference new boys, having beaten them 2-1 at the Deva in September.
City now lie 21 points from safety, as two of the other bottom four teams lost, Forest Green going down 5-2 at histon, and Ebbsfleet lost 2-0 at Chester's FA Cup opponents Barrow.
Hayes & Yeading surprised everyone with a 3-0 home win over promotion hopefuls Cambridge, and pull level on points with Grays, who lost 2-1 at Wrexham.
City will now turn their attentions to the FA Cup with Jimmy Harvey's men in action at Barrow, in the 4th Qualifying Round, where there will hope to come back with a result different to that of 2001, where Chester lost 1-0 to the Holker Street side.
But for now, let's celebrate Chester's win, which stretches their unbeaten away run to 7 games, just wish they could reproduce that kind of sequence at the Deva!
Blues face Barrow test in FA Cup
Chester City have again attracted one of the harder draws in the FA Cup, this time facing a difficult away trip to AFC Barrow.
Barrow of course, were previously owned by Stephen Vaughan, and taken into liquidation by the current Chester owner, thanks to a shortfall of £200,000 which is a lot less than the projected loss of £660,000 that appeared on the profit & loss forecast of the Blues last week.
Barrow were removed from the Football Conference following Vaughan taking the step to liquidate them, and the history appears to be on the verge of repeating itself with Chester City.
It's not the first time of course that Chester have met Barrow in the FA Cup, the other occasion being after vaughan had bought Chester but still had shares in Barrow, and soon followed a quick transfer to a close friend, and local painter & decorator to avoid a conflict of interests.
Following the game, the shares were transferred back, showing what a dodgy character Vaughan actually was. However, a few days later following this controversial move, the new Barrow chairman Brian Keen bought back the shares off Vaughan, and the Holker Street outfit were finally rid of Vaughan.
So, the Blues must travel to Barrow once again, and will be perhaps more confident of getting a result away from home, where they have drawn their last six games, rather than at home where they have now lost six this season.
One thing is for sure, the majority of Holker Street will be against the Chester City owner.
