Chester City 0 Rushden & Diamonds 1

Chester City lost their sixth home game of the season at the Deva Stadium on Saturday as Lee Tomlin's early strike for Rushden & Diamonds secured a valuable away win for the side chasing promotion to the Football League.

That of course, is in stark contrast to City's horrendous demise and probable relegation to the Blue Square North later this season.

City once again, failed to deliver at home, as they hardly came out of the blocks during a game dominated by poor refereeing, which saw two Chester players receive straight red cards.

City fell behind to Tomlin's 4th minute strike from the edge of the City area, and Gregg Blundell will be rueing more missed opportunities, having found himself in great positions in either half of the game, but failed to find a shot on target.

City did have efforts saved from a couple of chances, but just couldn't find a way past a stubborn and resolute Diamonds defence.

Their cause wasn't helped by the two sending offs, Glenn Rule was the first to see red, as he was accused quite rightly of stamping, just 15 minutes into the second half.

Worse was to follow after substitute Nick Chadwick, who had been dropped to the bench in favour of City debutant Mark Beesley, was guilty of a high foot on the Rushden keeper, although the referee's actions were deemed as harsh from most within the press area.

City were still in with a chance, but in all reality, the Blues didn't manage to get a decent effort on goal, and set pieces turned out to be rather poor, and just not good enough, in Jimmy Harvey's first game in charge.

Harvey, watching from the stands due to a touchline ban, of which this was the last game, considered Chester to be unlucky to take anything out of the game.

Rushden manager Justin Edinburgh, was however delighted with his sides win, despite claiming that the performance was one of their worst of the season, and that Chester were going into the game full of confidence - work that one out!!

The Blues have again let the fans down with another poor performance, and will have to hope that they can secure a win at Gateshead on Saturday