It’s a long old journey to Spennymoor.
Three hours, 168 miles and a trip up the A1(M) means that it is one of the lengthier treks that Chester have to undertake during the National League North season. They should have been doing it on Saturday, October 17. Two weeks from now, but Moors will have FA Cup engagements on that particular day.
When you lose at Spennymoor Town, those three hours or so feel like six, and that’s exactly how it will feel for the Blues players on the coach back from the North East this evening, for this was the first of two scheduled trips to Moors in 14 days, the second now to be moved, and one that ended with Chester unceremoniously dumped out of the FA Cup at the third qualifying round stage.
A spell of conceding three goals in 10 first half minutes effectively ended the game as a contest before the break. Former Gateshead, Leyton Orient and Motherwell striker Danny Johnson netted on 25 and 35 minutes before completing his hat-trick a little over 10 minutes after the break. Glenn Taylor, a thorn in Chester’s side for as long as the Blues have had to face the Moors in the past eight years, notched another, this time sandwiched between Johnson’s two first half strikes.
Billy Waters made it six goals in 11 games for Chester with a consolation two minutes after Johnson’s third, but there is little that can be done to gloss over a 4-1 defeat. It is the kind of defeat that can weigh heavy, and given the fact that Spennymoor, in the National League North, have won one in 10 and sit second bottom, this was not something that should be accepted as one of those things.
