CHESTER FC fans could be England’s longest suffering according to a new book on the history of non-league football.

Fred Atkins, author of the book Pyramid Schemes, a tie-in to the film Gate Money, which was premiered to a full house at the Storyhouse Theatre in Chester in November 2022, believes Chester’s fans might have had some of the hardest times of any group.

“It’s difficult to think of a group of fans who’ve had to endure as much as Chester’s have over the years,” said Fred.

The new book, billed as the story of: “How Non-League Football Became Massive,” contains a chapter on Chester City and the reformed Chester FC. 

“We made the film Gate Money a couple of years ago, but there was so much we had to leave out,” Atkins explained.

“The film was about the COVID funding fiasco and the book contains all the mad stories we didn’t have room for.”

Few of these stories are madder than Chester’s, according to the author.

“After the Gate Money screening at the Storyhouse the director, Jasper Spanjaart, and I went to the Shropshire Arms next door with their vice-chairman Jim Green, manager Calum MacIntyre and a number of Chester fans, who plied us with drinks and entertained us with their impressions of Terry Smith.

“I knew his story had been fairly well documented, but when I started my research and looked at his Wikipedia page, I realised it was highly likely he’d written the entry himself. Let's just say it wasn't a version that tallied with the others I'd heard.”

Chester's plight over several decades convinced the author they'd suffered as much as any, but he didn't see any evidence of bitterness. 

“The fans we spoke to seemed quite forgiving towards Smith, especially when compared to his successor and when I started researching the book I began to understand why.

“Apart from maybe Newport and my own club, Maidstone, I couldn’t think of any team in the English league system that had to put up with what they had to put up with, over so many years.

“The pyramid system has done a lot of good for English football, but there have also been a lot of losers and Chester were one of them. Against that, it does allow clubs to rebuild and rediscover the joy of winning. It’s just my opinion, but I think you would have enjoyed the 2010s a lot more if you were a Chester fan than a Wrexham fan for example.”

The author was so taken with Chester that at one point he was tempted to relocate.

“I think I was one pint away from moving north,” he said.

“I know they’ve had a mixed season this year, but it felt like both a great place to live and watch football."