A traffic accident on the M62 meant that Town did not arrive at the superb Exacta Stadium until 7-20pm,necessitating in an 8pm kick off.
This didn’t appear to inconvenience Town, and an early Dave Merris corner was flicked on to the post by Shane Killock, but Chib Chilaka’s follow up went agonisingly wide.
Chester’s Danny Williams then produced a mazy run through the Town defence, which ended with a shot past the post.
The game’s most controversial moment came in the 10th minute when Adam Bolder passed to Danny Forrest,who squared to the overlapping Dwayne Samuels. Samuels carried the ball down the right before crossing to Chilaka who swept in from close range,only to be denied by the linesman’s raised offside flag. A decision which both sets of supporters disputed.
A pulsating first half,saw Chester’s Paul Linwood head Matty McGinn’s corner against the post and Craig MacGillivray deny Ben Mills with his legs when he was clean through.
Dan Clayton shot wide after good work by Chilaka and Merris and Adam Nowakowski headed a Merris free kick wide as Town matched the league leaders in every department.
Unfortunately,vit was a different story after the break.
Marc Williams picked up a weak clearance only to be blocked by a crunching tackle by Killock,but on the hour, Antoni Sarcevic broke the deadlock, when his stinging,near post drive beat MacGillivray.
Luke Dean and Jonny Allan replaced Adam Nowakowski and Danny Clayton,but Town,despite the promptings of Paul Bolland and the untiring Bolder couldn’t break through.
Chester’s Craig Curran hit the post, before the excellent Dwayne Samuels unfortunately turned a low cross into his own net to seal Town’s fate.
Town had two late chances to get on to the scoresheet when both Samuels and Forrest were played in on the right,but both shot well wide.
Town 1 MacGillivray, 2 Samuels, 3 Merris,4 Bolder, 5 Bloomer, 6 Killock, 7 Nowakowski,( Dean 58) 8 Bolland (c) 9 Chilaka (Hardy 89) 10 Forrest, 11 Clayton (Allan 58)
Unused subs 15 White,17 Da Veiga.
Bookings Bolder, Killock,Nowakowski.
Attendance 1803
