Since being controversially promoted from Division 3 back in 2000/1 the Spirites have struggled to sta in the division, finishing 16^th, 17^th, 20^th, 20^th and 18^th before finally being relegated last season by finishing 21^st in League One, losing exactly half of their 46 games. Last season was a nightmare for Chesterfield fans who saw an impressive run in the Carling Cup distract them from League action and winning just 5 of their final 25 games really sealed their fate.

They did show their potential however when they beat Bradford 3-0 on a day where the team that lost would be relegated, but in the end results elsewhere meant that both the Spirites and Bradford were relegated that day. It was too little, too late for the Spirites and they return to the 4^th tier hoping to emulate their straight down/straight back up showing the last time they were here.

City have a decent recent record against the Spirites, winning the last 3 minutes and scoring 10 goals in the process. The last meeting came in the 2003/4 season when Gary Fletcher (as he was known then) scored the Silver Goal in the 2^nd round of the LDV Vans Trophy to give City a 4-3 win.

Having watched Chesterfield a few times in recent years you can see that they like to play football down the wings, hoping that their strikers can latch onto the crosses. However, in the games I saw this failed miserably and they just seemed devoid of ideas after just 20 or so minutes, reverting to long aimless punts into the box after this.

One name familar to City fans will be Jamie Ward. The 21 year old has already rejected a move to Sincil Bank on two occasions, the first time to join Torquay and the second to join Chesterfield from the Gulls. The impressive youngster scored 12 goals in 34 league games last season between the Gulls and the Spirites and he is expected to be amongst the top scorers in League Two during the coming season.

He is joined by two other familiar sounding names. Jack Lester has played for two of our local teams, Nottingham Forest and Grimsby Town, whereas former Bournemouth striker Steve Fletcher got the first of Bournemouth’s first goals in the Playoff Final back in 2003.

Other than these players there aren’t a lot of names that would seem above average in Lee Richardson’s side.

Speaking to a few Chesterfield fans gives me the impression that they think the League Two will be a stroll and they will go straight back up, but there are a lot of decent sides in this division and many better than what I’ve seen of the Spirites. As City found out last season it doesn’t matter how many goals you score, it’s how few you let in that counts and that it probably what will let Chesterfield down from a promotion hunt.

If they can find the striker to get on the end of those aimless crosses then they could potentially finish quite high in this division, but I think 10^th is a more realistic finish for them.

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