DO not be fooled by the scoreline. For almost 80 minutes of an uncomfortable afternoon Joe Royle must have wished Manchester's other team could have given the FA Cup a miss as well. His players certainly performed as if they were hoping to gain entry to the less well-known World Pub Championship in Brazil.
The three goals Manchester City scored in the final 12 minutes yesterday gave the result a ludicrously lop-sided look. The league tables suggested this was a mismatch between the English League's second best club and its worst but it was impossible to tell.
Chester often outfought and outplayed their opponents and undoubtedly had enough chances to have drawn. Ironically, the best of them fell to a Manchester City fan Luke Beckett.
"The guys are heartbroken because of the scoreline," said Chester's American owner-manager Terry Smith. "They know the late goals made something that should have been one of their greatest experiences into an embarrassment. But I was real proud of our guys. The reality is that they played as well as, if not better than, Manchester City." Smith said Royle told him he "was sorry and the scoreline didn't reflect what happened".
Not that Royle was shedding tears. For him this was a return to what he thought he had left behind when City won promotion last season. It was the familiar tale of a struggling club playing unrecognisably well because the big boys were in town.
The stench of manure drifting in from a cow-filled field behind one goal might have come as a shock.
"On the sway of the game we deserved to win," Royle insisted. "I'm sure that's the best Chester have played for a long, long time otherwise they wouldn't be where they are in the league."
Smith, a former American footballer who rescued Chester from the brink of extinction in the summer, plans to reach the First Division in three years. He has hardly started spectacularly, but here he could hold his head high.
Even after Shaun Goater had taken advantage of a defensive mix-up to put City ahead from Kevin Horlock's cross, Chester refused to capitulate. Nick Richardson equalised, shooting in off the bar, and missed easier opportunities either side of half-time.
When the impressive Beckett was put through by Darren Wright in the 73rd minute it seemed City might suffer a repeat of their humiliating defeat by Halifax in 1980, but Nick Weaver saved brilliantly, denied Beckett again inside two minutes and City capitalised.
Ian Bishop, one of their few players to emerge with credit, headed in from Richard Edghill's cross and two goals in the final minute wrapped up the tie. First Goater scored his second from Horlock's pass and then Richard Jobson saw a header deflected in by Matt Doughty, a former Manchester City trainee.
CHESTER: Brown, Moss, Doughty, Reid, Spooner, Woods, Nash (Berry 87), Richardson, Wright (Cross 80), Beckett, Fisher. Subs Not Used: Conkie, Lancaster, Milovaijevic. Booked: Reid. Goal: Richardson 27.
MANCHESTER CITY: Weaver, Edghill, Wiekens, Horlock, Bishop, Goater, Pollock, Peacock, Jobson, Kennedy, Granville (Whitley 45). Subs Not Used: Cooke, Allsopp, Tiatto, Wright. Booked: Horlock. Goals: Goater 19, Bishop 78, Doughty 90 o.g., Goater 90.
Referee: T Heilbron (Newton Aycliffe).
