THIS is all too good to be true. Chester City are champions.

Next they'll be telling us that Elvis is playing live on Mars a week on Monday.

Titles are for Arsenal, Lennox Lewis, Michael Schumacher or the Duke of Westminster.

Chester City come from the world of mishaps and misfortune, where heartache always strikes just before the final whistle. Or it always did when Harry McNally was tearing his hair out in the dug-out.

If Victor Meldrew wasn't a Chester fan, he should have been.

From Sealand Road to Moss Rose to Deva Stadium, Chester would have been right up his street.

Glass always half empty, never half full because experience tells you to hope for the best, but fear the worst. I learnt that from my Chester debut in the 1971-72 season.

Breathless anticipation carried me to the ground. Intense deflation weighed me down every step of the trudge home. All that needs to be said is that we lost.

Until these last few glorious months, there have been far too many downs and not nearly enough ups.

One weekend, Terry Owen would be banging in a hat-trick and the imagination would run wild at the prospect of a famous promotion charge.

Then before you knew it, Ian Edwards and Ian Mellor were being sold off and Penrith were inflicting humiliating defeat in the FA Cup first round.

I know because I was there in the sheeting Cumbrian rain to witness Gary Simpson flounder hopelessly in the mud.

Sadly. those Milton Graham moments - jinking and weaving every bit as magically as Thierry Henry - were all too fleeting before the club became the Chester 'Nomads' in Macclesfield.

I mean, would you sell your house without a clue where you'd be living afterwards?

Fast forward to 1994 when Clare Balding delivered her most devastating one liner so far on the BBC.

'Graham Barrow has resigned from newly-promoted Chester City,' she told Radio 5 Live listeners on a sun-filled day in June.

If it hadn't been for some track tuition that very morning at Silverstone in preparation for the British Grand Prix, I'd have gone crashing through the central reservation on the M40 when I heard the news.

As for Saturday, May 6 2000, a Formula One commentary box has never been so deathly silent at a race weekend.

Boycotts and picket lines, sackings and Smith - the slide into oblivion looked inevitable.

Oh ye of little faith! Chester are back on the map, with money in the bank and a wealth of players to inspire dreams of taking the Football League by storm.

Look what Doncaster Rovers have achieved since squeezing through last season's Conference play-offs.

Daryl Clare has feet that move faster than a Ferrari and Danny Collins should be giving lessons to Rio Ferdinand.

It could all end tomorrow. Given Chester's past form, it may well end in tears. But boy, I hope it doesn't. This is the best football fun I've had in years.

From one foot in the grave to the championship. I don't believe it!