When I wrote On The Borderline there was one piece of information that eluded me but I have finally managed to discover the result of the first game played under the Chester name in 1885.

The original Chester were formed in 1885 as an amalgamation of Chester Rovers and King’s School Old Boys. As I explained in the first chapter of the book this was essentially the Chester Rovers team augmented by committee members from the scholars.

The first game mentioned in the local papers took place on September 19th 1885 at Victoria Road, Oswestry where Chester were beaten 10-0 while the inaugural home match, at Faulkner Street in Hoole the following week, resulted in a 3-0 defeat to Northwich Victoria. There was no coverage of any game in the local papers prior to Oswestry but a fixture card referenced in the fascinating 1936 Reminiscences booklet by “Bevys” mentions a game at Earlestown on September 5th. In the first edition of On The Borderline I inadvertently put the date of this game as September 12th and although it was corrected in the text in the 2nd edition it is still incorrect in the statistics section at the back.

The Reminiscences booklet states: “The first fixture on the 5th September 1885, was against Earlstown away, but with what result is not recorded in the local newspapers which serve us so well these days. Whatever happened is lost in obscurity.”

Despite ploughing through the local papers and a trip to Earlestown I was never able to discover the result of the first game although I knew that Chester had been beaten as a letter appeared in the Cheshire Observer on December 26th 1885 from the club secretary A Carden Lockwood. The correspondence, in response to a critical letter the previous week, stated: “In their first match at Earlstown they were beaten by the Liverpool and District cup holders, as everyone who really knows anything about Chester football well knows.”

I have finally unearthed a match report from the Earlestown game in the Liverpool Mercury from Monday September 7th 1885 which reveals that Chester lost the game 2-0. It reads as follows:

EARLESTOWN v CHESTER – The Chester first team journeyed to Earlestown on Saturday and met the holders of the Liverpool and District Challenge Cup, in the presence of a good number of spectators. The cup holders were without the services of Rich, Ellison, and Ogden, while the visitors also failed to turn up with their full strength. Earlestown won by 2 goals to none. Teams: Earlestown – J Appleton, goal: R. Green and J. Green, backs: J Whalley, W Lane, and R Bowker, half-backs: J Duxbury and T Siddeley, right wing; A. W. Dagnall (captain), centre: J. W. Simms and T. Ferguson, left wing. Chester – G. James, goal; Southworth and Higginson, backs; Hack (captain), Moss and Roberts, half-backs; Lockwood and Marsh, right wing; Sanders, centre; Banks and Wright, left wing.