After a solid victory on Saturday, the unchanged team hoped to continue racing up the league table. Unfortunately it ended up in a frustrating evening for the fans as the clearly better team failed to put away chances and let in two silly goals. After a number of years of success, the club are not used to so few goals and wins especially so early in the season. A reminder of this past success and high expectations was again visible on the terracing (and in the nearby chip shop signing autographs) as like the terminator, Jon Jon kept to his ‘I’ll be back’ mantra.

The Stan started the match well and made most of the chances. Although Chester had few chances, they did what the home side could not do in the twenty second minute and put their second real attempt away. After the first attack was stopped by the Stan defence, the ball came back into the box and was looped over a Stan player on the line by Heslop to make it 0-1.

The rest of the half again saw mainly pressure by the home side but with no reward for it and play had begun to run out of steam by half time. Heaton Stannington again started the second half by continuing to attack Chester.

It was the away side though that, against the run of play, nearly scored in the sixty third minute when they hit the post. Another rare Chester attack on seventy four minutes saw Pearson lose the ball on the bye line and Heslop again put the ball away from a tight angle to make it 0-2.

The Stan continued to waste their attacking moves although overall the second half was more evenly matched. There was though a good attempt by Deagle on seventy five minutes when his long shot was put over the bar by the Chester goalkeeper.

Five minutes later Burns was brought down in the box but no penalty was given. The last ten minutes saw the Stan up the pressure but, with lots of long balls, they failed to break through the packed Chester defence.

The away side did have two good chances with eight minutes to go and these were followed by an overhead kick by Lee Johnson that just went wide. The two Stan substitutions came late in the game and with Chester packing their defence, it was no surprise when the match finally ended 0-2.

Stan Team: Rule; Stoddart; Deagle; Dixon, I; Pearson; Wear; Blakey (Dixon, G); Johnson, L; Stevens; Robertson (Yates); Burns.

Unused subs: Telford; Chambers; Hoggins.

Yellow Cards: Lee Johnson.

Attendance: 103

Kevin Mochrie