A last gasp strike condemned PNE's youth team to an undeserved 1-0 defeat at Chester City on Saturday morning.

Having come close to opening the scoring on countless occasions, the scholars just couldn't find a breakthrough, and were made to pay when a late strike secured all three points for the Cheshire side.

"It was a game that had to be seen to be believed," explained director of youth Dean Ramsdale.

"We totally dominated for 89 of the 90 minutes, and I think we had something like 20-odd efforts on goal without it actually going in. You're always waiting for the inevitable to happen in a game like that.

"It was probably around the 85th minute that we conceded a sloppy free-kick, keeper Chris Thompson had a lapse in concentration coming for it, and presented their striker with a tap-in from six yards.

"Everybody's very low and disappointed with the way the game has gone because of that, and sadly the game will probably be remembered for Chris' mistake rather than the plethora of chances that we had."

However, Dean knows that it won't be long before the lads can get the strain of defeat out of their system.

"We've got another game on Tuesday against Port Vale in the Youth Alliance, and Billy Barr has been saying that it's likely to be a very young reserve side that plays against Chester on Wednesday, so everybody has a chance to get over it very quickly.

"We'll probably play a really young side against Port Vale, with a number of the under 16s that we've given scholarships to being given a chance to play, while some lads will probably play two games in two days.

"Tuesday will be a good chance for the young lad we've just signed from Manchester City, Ryan McGreevy. We don't want to put too much pressure on the lad, but from what we've seen in training, he wants to score a lot of goals. He's still only an under 16 but he scores more goals than anybody else in training, so that bodes well for his future.

"We've also got another young lad coming in from Man City on Tuesday who we've nicknamed 'Derek', because his surname is Dougan, so they're two young, hungry boys who will get a chance to play up front together.

"We've still got something like nine league games to go because of the weather and the state of the pitches so far this season, and in all there are about 12 or 13 games for us to get involved in this month at various levels. We expect that at this level, and we've got to be ready for it."