HISTORY CORNER: The Champions 2004 – Chester City

It ended with Chester City as champions and Shrewsbury Town as Promotion Final winners and with no team actually relegated – but more of that later!

Current Football League sides Exeter City, Morecambe, Barnet, Stevenage, Accrington Stanley, Burton Albion and Forest Green Rovers were also members of the Conference that season, showing its strength.

Relegation was expected for Farnborough Town, Leigh RMI and Northwich Victoria, but Telford United were declared bankrupt and disbanded later to become AFC Telford United of course, Margate had ground problems and Hucknall Town turned down promotion, so the three teams who finished in a relegation spot were all reprieved.

Chester won the title after an exciting finale to the season when they pipped Hereford United by just a single point, which was something of a surprise to all except their own fans as the Bulls had been `the team to watch` throughout the season and looked a shoe-in to go up.

They thrilled then-intrigued Sky Sports subscribers by battering Dagenham & Redridge 9-0 in a live game – something unusual in those days – on February 27th and ended the season with 103 goals – champions Chester scored 83.

However, Hereford were beaten by Aldershot Town, who had only just sneaked into the top five by a point, in the play-off semi-final on penalties after 1-1 and 0-0 draws.

Shrewsbury finished third in the regular season, 17 points adrift of the top two, and were also taken to penalties by fourth-placed Barnet in their play-off semi-final before triumphing 5-3.

The final also went to a shoot-out in front of just under 20,000 at Stoke City after a 1-1 draw – The Shrew going through 3-0 in a tense penalty competition.

Chester`s triumph owed a great deal to their prolific strike partnership of Daryl Clare and Darryn Stamp.

Clare earned a second Conference winners` medal – his first came with Boston United in 2002 – scoring 30 goals, while Stamp pitched in with 20.

Chester suffered just four defeats under former Liverpool and England defender Mark Wright during the campaign, winning promotion back to the Football League with a 1–0 victory over Scarborough in the penultimate match of the season.

And, appropriately given the manager`s expertise, Chester`s title triumph was built around a solid defence, conceding only 34 goals in their 42 league games.

The championship success came with a fantastic run from January 24th when they won eleven and drew two of their last fourteen matches – their only defeat coming, ironically, on the final day of the season to Hereford at Edgar Street in front of a crowd of 7,240.

Just five years later, Chester were back in the Conference and a couple of weeks later the club entered Administration.

And, after creditors voted in favour of a rescue package by controversial former chairman Stephen Vaughan's family, the club was accepted into the Conference National with a 10-point deduction.

The rest, as they say, is history, with the demise of Chester City and the emergence of Chester FC.

In contrast, Shrewsbury re-grouped in their one campaign in the Conference under Jimmy Quinn (pictured), and although the Irishman didn`t last long in the job the following season, under Gary Peters the Shrews went on to lose to Bristol Rovers in the League Two play-off final in May 2007 at the new Wembley Stadium in front of a record crowd of 61,589.

The club moved to their brand-new stadium - The New Meadow - for the start of the 2007/08 season and in April 2015 they earned promotion to League One under now-Tranmere Rovers` boss Micky Mellon and are currently chasing a place in the Championship under the man who took Grimsby Town up from the National League, Paul Hurst.