What can you say about rubbish like this?

Unfortunately, I’ve got the task of finding another 1,400 words – a challenge on a par with having to sit through a DVD of Saturday again.

Chester and City, the sequel, was every bit as bum-numbing as the nightmare before Christmas at Valley Parade. Entertainment, great skills, thrilling goal-mouth action; we had none of it.

There were mitigating circumstances, of course, with the shocking conditions. A buffeting wind howling from one end to the other made any aerial ball a bit of a lottery. It would either hover like a reluctant seagull or fly straight through.

The pitch was even worse. There seemed to be nearly as much sand as grass and the bobbly surface ensured that any pass of more than five yards would reach its target at shin height – or above.

It was hardly the perfect stage for total football. So instead the 2,700 hardy souls – most, as usual, from West Yorkshire – were forced to endure the most tedious 90 minutes of the season. And, ultimately, the game that could effectively shut the door on City’s play-off hopes.

Mathematically nothing has changed, other than the matches-left column ticking down to just six.

Apart from Chesterfield, who are becoming a genuine threat to the top seven now, City’s immediate rivals Shrewsbury and Exeter also drew away.

But look who they were playing. The Shrews, who usually can’t buy a point outside of Shropshire, fought back to share the spoils at Wycombe in the lunchtime game.

And Exeter, who looked pretty dreadful a fortnight ago, twice came from behind to earn a draw with Rochdale.

Both travelling teams would have gone home very happy at denying fellow promotion fighters. The same can hardly be said about City. They had a great chance to get back into the pack. Instead they remain a point outside and belief ebbs away a little bit more.

Chester were supposed to be a gimme; the club who had not won since we were all bloating ourselves on turkey sandwiches.

No wins in January, February and now March but City still couldn’t beat them – or even score in three hours of trying.

But a second goalless bore against Mark Wright’s men hardly came as the biggest shock, given the sudden paucity in front of goal.

Since those five against Aldershot, Matt Clarke’s header at Bournemouth is the only time City have hit the net in five matches. There was little evidence on Saturday that the barren run would change.

There was the small silver lining of another clean sheet at long last. But then again, as their manager pointed out afterwards, Chester are the team without a recognised centre forward.

They do have the spiky Kevin Ellison, whose mission on a football field always seems to be based on how many opponents he can antagonise. Clarke got his goat up, and vice versa, and there were a few afters that referee Dean Whitestone might have taken exception to.

Whitestone could also have influenced proceedings by sending off Chester skipper Paul Linwood for the third of his bookable offences. But he remained despite attempting to slice Nicky Law in two and generally bugged the hell out of the willing but unsuccessful Paul Mullin.

The on-loan Accrington striker, bearing the embarrassment of playing for the last team to lose to Chester, at least gave it everything in a pretty fruitless battle.

He had one of City’s few genuine sights of goal with a back-post header after Graeme Lee had flicked on a free-kick but John Danby saw the danger and smuggled the ball away.

Danby had also shown strong hands to beat out a snap-shot from Michael Boulding, the highlight of a frustrating afternoon for the City frontman.

Stuart McCall had shuffled the formation rather than personnel. Paul McLaren was added to the midfield to create a central three, with Law given a floating role behind the strikers.

On another day, it might have worked, but the conditions didn’t suit McLaren’s more cultured approach, while the space out wide was generally wasted by Steve Jones and Luke O’Brien.

The standard of their crossing was poor, more often than not being cleared by the first defender, and Chester’s creaky defence was tested nowhere near enough.

Chester had the wind behind them from the start but, given that they have only scored one goal in the last 14 first halves, it was hardly the Alamo.

Winger Richie Partridge was a threat and looked the one player on the pitch genuinely capable of conquering the conditions but he was pretty much on his own as an attacking threat.

For the first hour, the biggest discomfort for Rhys Evans had come from a Lee back pass that pinged back to the keeper at almost knee height.

Then City were suddenly caught out as Clarke brought down Ellison. Chester played on and James Vaughan whipped a dangerous ball into the six-yard box where only the alert intervention of Zesh Rehman prevented Partridge tapping in.

Partridge had a header blocked by Clarke and then fired the rebound wastefully over. If anyone was going to break the tedious deadlock, it looked like the home side.

Chris Brandon replaced the anonymous Jones with 15 minutes left and finally City found a bit of urgency in their play. Sadly, though, the quality was still absent.

A frenetic finish threatened a late winner as Brandon was tripped on the edge of the box and Lee Bullock’s flick-on caused mayhem in the goal mouth.

But a goal would have been an injustice. City simply did not do enough – and as the weeks race by, that could be the epitaph of their frustrating season.

McCall’s Wembley dream is not dead but, with the likes of Brentford, Morecambe, Dagenham and Chesterfield lying in wait over the final month, the rocky road ahead is strewn with nasties. It makes the Deva pitch look like a bowling green.

Attendance: 2,735