Chester City 1 Morecambe 0

IF there is one thing Morecambe hate more than being beaten, it's being beaten by Lancaster.

And that's just what happened on Saturday when Chester youngster Martyn Lancaster gave his side victory at the Deva stadium.

Morecambe also picked up their first sending off of the season, with Ryan-Zico Black seeing red for an uncharacteristic 78th minute foul on Chris Blackburn.

Chester, enjoying their first season in the conference after relegation from the football league, soundly beat the Shrimps at Christie Park in September.

And they repeated the dose on Saturday, taking just a quarter of an hour to break the deadlock.

The Shrimps were unable to clear a Chester corner, with efforts from Paul Carden and Matt Woods being blocked on the line before the ball feel to

Lancaster on the edge of the six yard box to shoot home.

Even after Chester went down to ten men, with former Blackpool and Rochdale midfield man Carden being sent off midway through the second half, Morecambe rarely looked like equalising.

David Lee worked hard on his debut, but found the rock solid Chester defence cutting out his attempted crosses at every opportunity.

The result pushes Morecambe alarmingly close to the Conference relegation zone, although postponed games and the excellent FA cup run give Jim Harvey's side several games in hand on every other side in the league.

The run in is therefore likely to test the newly expanded squad at Christie Park to its limits, with the likelihood of two games a week becoming the norm between now and May.

Morecambe have already made progress in one cup competition this week, easily beating Blackpool based Squires Gate in the Lancashire Cup.

A brace from John Norman, a first goal for David Lee and another for Mark Quayle eased the Shrimps through to the semi-finals..

They have the chance to take a step forward in the FA Umbro Trophy this Saturday when they travel to Warwickshire to face Evesham.