Exeter City 1-0 Chester
Scorers: Bowker
Attendance: 3,454

No celebrations for Oakes in away defeat!

Chester's player-manager Alan Oakes is glad to have put all th fuss about his 700th Football Lesgue appearance behind him. After his side's dismal defeat a St. James's Park, he revealed that he would gladly have svopped his personal milesture for two welcome points. "It Was disappointing," he said. "We ware alunya under the collar a little be, but we had two or three god chances which we should have stuck away.""You know that you are going to be under pressure away from home and you cannot really afford to miss chances like that."

Exeter players had formed a guard of honour for Oakes before the match, but they spent the rest of the afternoon trying to spoil his day! And for the fortuitous intervention of the woodwork and some superb goalkeeping from Brian Lloyd, they might have succeeded even more handsomely. Lloyd had still not fully recovend from his wrist injury, and he only played because he was slightly fitter than Gren Millington, who injured his ribs at Grimsby last week. Exeter had good reason to be thankful that Lloyd was slightly handicapped, for if he had been any fitter it is doubtful whether they would have scored at all. Lloyd made three superb saves n the opening 20 minutes, two of them in quick succession from Steve Neville and Deve Puller, and the other from a fine shot on the torn by John Delve. Peter Rogers and Puller did manage to beat Lloyd in a first half dominated by Exeter, but first the post and then the crossbar saved Chester. The second half followed a similar pattern, with Exeter well on top, and Lloyd capping a fine display by saving 65th minute penalty after full-back Paul Raynor was adjudged to have pushed Keith Bowker. Neville struck the kick in the right direction, but his shot did not carry sufficient power to beat Lloyd's dive. However, Chester's hero finally had to concede defeat 10 minutes later, when Neville's low cross beat everybody except BOWKER, who was perfectly positioned at the far post to slot home his ninth goal of the season.
Exeter would no doubt claim that the goal was a just reward for all their attacking efforts, but despite being under such heavy pressure, Chester might easily have snatched a point. Ian Edwards and Peter Henderson were always a danger up front, and both combined to give Exeter's', Vince O'Keefe, one of his few anxious moments. O'Keefe had to dive bravely at Henderson's feet after Edwards had split the Exeter defence. Ian Howat also tested the the goalkeeper with a fine 67th minute shot, but otherwise O'Keefe had a fairly quiet afternoon. Two players were booked, Exeter's John Delve for dissent, and Chester's Jim Walker for a foul on Delve, which led to a nasty second hall flare-up.

Team:
CHESTER: Lloyd, Raynor, Burns, Storton, Cottam, Oakes, Howat, Jones, Edwards, Walker and Henderson. Sub: Phillips.