Caledonia Dreaming or Ian38018 Sporting Travels: Deva Stadium

Chester 2-2 Curzon Ashton

14th January 2023

Although this current incarnation of Chester Football Club are far removed from that from the city which played in the English Football League between 1931 and 2000, and again from 2004 until 2009 - before their winding-up (due to that old favourite, tax debts) in 2010. What both clubs do share is that each once called Deva Stadium home.

The Deva Stadium (the name is derived from part of an old Roman name for the city), was opened in 1992, and has been the home to Chester FC, who had been formed in 2010 immediately upon the liquidation of Chester City.

The fledging club began life in the Northern Premier League Division One North (what a mouthful), which I think represented pyramid tier eight back then. Three successive promotions took the new club into the National League (or Conference Premier, as was), where they found life more than a little tougher. A 12th spot placing in season 2014/15 proved to be the club's high water mark at this level, Chester FC generally finding themselves flirting with relegation down the wrong end of the table. An eventuality which finally occurred in 2018 dropping the club back to the National League North - a level which Chester FC have never seriously looked like leaving since - in either direction.

That being said, Chester FC went into this afternoon's match sitting comfortably in one of the (admittedly myriad) promotion play-off spots, and hosting a Curzon Ashton side sixteen points and a whopping fourteen places behind them.

And for much of this match it looked as if I may, just possibly, witness a (very) minor upset as the visitors, outplayed for pretty much the whole match, opened up an improbable 2-0 lead. But two late counters by the home side, who only really appeared to get their act together after going two down, led to a share of the points. It did extend Chester's unbeaten league run to 15 games....but the 2-2 final score did represent the home side's fourth draw on the trot. Hardly promotion winning form.

The only time I heard (or read, or seen) this phrase before was in a Stone Roses song.

Chester v Curzon Ashton (January 2023)

I loved this wee clock - even though it was a bit fast.
It is to commemorate former board member Richard Wightman,
who passed away in 2012 aged just 33.

The Harry McNally terrace is named for a former manager of Chester City.

Chester v Curzon Ashton (January 2023)

Chester's Iwan Murray was a bit of a force of perpetual motion...
without, regretfully, creating anything much.

Chester's Matty Williams

After looking lively for the first quarter of an hour or so, Chester were caught with a sucker blow in the 18th minute when Craig Mahon fed Tom PEERS (both former Chester players, I noted) who opened the scoring. I can only assume Peers' shot took a deflection off a defender, for home 'keeper Harry Tyrer really did not look too clever in conceding here. From where I was viewing he appeared to just sit down and casually watch the ball trickle past him. The locals around me barracked the near side assistant referee for not raising his flag for offside, and I have to say, I thought they had a point.

For the next forty minutes or so, Chester dominated possession but failed to do much with it, their efforts to gain parity hampered by good old fashioned crap finishing.

I did enjoy watching the Chester centre back pairing, and their marked contrast in styles. The tall, blond Matty Williams was all right-footed, yet looked comfortable on the ball, always looking to find a team mate with (an occasionally over-optimistic) threaded pass. His defensive partner, Alex Kenyon was a much more muscular individual altogether, with a rather more agricultural approach to getting the ball out of the danger zone. The pair actually had a decent matches, but were let down by the midfielders in front of them allowing the visitors way too much time to build moves.

This was never more apparent than with Ashton's second, in the 66th minute. I counted (on the highlights) nine pretty much unchallenged passes by the vistors before the ball fell to an unmarked Craig MAHON on the edge of the box, who simply pivoted, ran past the lumbering Alex Kenyon as if the latter wasn't there, before left footing past Tyrer. Again, I have to suggest Tyrer was either unsighted, or that the ball took another deflection for, once more, his attempt to keep the ball out looked half-hearted at best.

This reverse finally seemed to rouse the home lads from their torpor, and within a few minutes Charlie Caton had whupped one of the visitors' crossbar before, with 13 minutes remaining, my man Matty WILLIAMS headed one in from around 6cm out. It was pretty much one-way traffic towards the Ashton goal after that, although I did rather think the visitors were going to hold out for the win.

But one of Kenyon's trademark hoofs from the halfway line somehow evaded the visiting defence, and reached Jamie Morgan, who set up Kurt WILLOUGHBY (great name) to slide in an equaliser. We were then treated to one of those playground tussles for the ball in the goal net. I don't know why referees do not clamp down on such silliness. For Law 8 clearly states: "after a team scores a goal, the kick-off is taken by their opponent". So, to my simple mind, the side who have just scored should keep their grubby little paws off.

Panorama of Deva Stadium.

The site of Chester's Deva Stadium does, as I am sure we all know, enjoy the (probably unique) feature of having a national border run through it. Although strictly speaking, the border actually wanders through the car park, and the whole of the playing surface site lies in Wales. Hence the reason the club, despite being an English one, fell foul of the stricter Welsh Assembly restrictions during COVID.

It is a moderately pleasing place to watch a geme o' fitba or (gêm o bêl-droed), even if it does suffer from those pesky open corners, which allow the wind in, and atmosphere to leak out.

It last hosted English League football in May 2009, when the old Chester City FC lost to Darlington Town on the last day of the 2008/09 season. The club were effectively already relegated out of the Football League by that point. Something which actually took some doing, when you think about it, given four other clubs in the division that season were given deductions ranging from 10-30 points for varying degrees of financial administration infractions.