Whitby Town vs Chester FC - Japes Preview

The Blues return to league action at Whitby on Saturday, a place best known for being one of the filming locations for ITV1 snooze-fest Heartbeat.

“Bet they’ve got Green Grass at their ground” grinned Neil Young with a twinkle in his eye, whilst nudging reporters, hoping that they’d get the joke.

Young’s men travel to the Turnbull Stadium, so-named after Chelsea goalkeeper Ross Turnbull, hoping to recover from the late defeat at Bradford PA, and have every reason to be confident. Whitby, boringly nicknamed ‘The Blues’, have lost seven games on the trot and are languishing third from bottom in the league, despite reports of completely bossing every game they’ve played.

Chester will need to improve their finishing if they want to start picking up points again, and this has led Chris Simm to do some extra work after training;

“I’ve been playing Roberto Baggio’s Magical Kicks online,” said the striker, whilst every journalist nodded nostalgically, and made a mental note to Google it when they got home.

Michael Powell and George Horan are expecting to shake off knocks to recover for the clash, guaranteeing that the game will see at least two yellow cards.

“It’s not every week you get to play against ex-Premiership players like Andy Campbell (former Middlesborough goal-every-twelve-games striker) – count me in,” barked the Skipper.

John Danby is also set to return in place of Timmy Judge, if he can re-schedule his personal trainer appointments.

“I didn’t realise there were two Whitbys,” confessed the shot stopper.

“I’m just starting a business and I’ve got a couple booked in for Saturday morning thinking that I’d easily get to Whitby (Ellesmere Port) in time, but then Neil mentioned that the coach would pick us up, which seemed a little off.  Then Simmo reckoned we’d be stopping for a pint in the Aidensfield Arms on the way back and that’s when I thought ‘hang on, It’s the Heartbeat place’.  I’ve told Simmo that the Aidensfield Arms is fictional, and so is Gina – he’s gutted. Think he thought that Bellamy would be stewarding.”.

Reporters also quizzed manager Young about possible changes to the personnel that lined up at Stalybridge in midweek but soon fathomed that the manager was playing one of his familiar games;

“A little bit of Danby in my life, a little bit of Brownhill by my side, a little bit of Howard’s what I see.”

Young and the gaggle of reporters ripped up laughing halfway through “a little of bit of Tay Tay in the sun.”