Southport 0, Chester City 3

Feb 8 2001 Chester Chronicle Series

CHESTER may yet have to clear the dust from the shelves of their trophy cupboard if they can maintain the level of their performance in the Nationwide Variety Club Trophy at windy Haig Avenue on Tuesday.

Southport, lying third in the Conference, were swept aside with almost contemptuous ease in far from easy conditions to leave manager Graham Barrow purring with pleasure.

"I enjoyed watching them play like that," he said. "We told the players to go out and enjoy themselves and they turned in a good performance."

It would be easy for the cynics to suggest Southport weren't that interested in the least prestigious of the competitions open to Conference clubs, but that would be doing Chester an injustice.

The fact is that on the night City were the better side which the home manager Mark Wright was quick to admit. "The better team won. Chester were very well organised," he said.

The most pleasing feature was the clinical finishing. Mark Beesley (twice) and Paul Carden took their goals superbly and in two of them the tricky newcomer Jimmy Haarhoff played a major role.

"He was different class," added Barrow. Indeed, he was and it is a long time since a Chester player relished running at defences, causing all sorts of problems and creating opportunities for his team-mates.

Chester made their intentions clear early on with Scott Ruscoe bringing a brilliant save from Steve Dickinson from his curling shot towards the top corner of the net, but the goalkeeper had no chance after 17 minutes when the hard-working Matt Doughty set up Beesley to shoot home off the inside of a post.

And after 32 minutes City were well in control when Haarhoff's penetrating run was rewarded with a cracking shot from Carden.

Wayne Brown showed the sort of form which has earned him a call-up to the England semi-professional squad with successive saves from Simon Parke just after the break and those, plus Beesley's second strike after 64 minutes from a link-up between Haarhoff and Darren Moss proved heartbreakers for Southport.

Southport: Dickinson, Elam (Stuart 62), Grayston, Linighan, Guyett, Clark, Marsh, Gouck, Arnold, Parke, Whittaker (Furlong 62). Subs: Bolland, O'Brien, Macauley.

Booked: Marsh, Gouck.

Chester: Brown, Moss (Woodyatt 82), Doughty, Woods, Ruffer, Lancaster, Carden, Blackburn, Haarhoff (Berry 77), M Beesley (Wright 76), Ruscoe. Sub: Price.

Booked: Moss.

Referee: L Mason.

Attendance: 685.