*Hendrie spares Villa’s blushes*

Lee Hendrie converted his own missed penalty to finally break Chester’s resolve in last night’s Worthington’s cup tie after the home team’s Yugoslav debutant Goran Milovaijevic handled Alan Thompson’s 78th-minute corner.

Chester’s keeper Wayne Brown blocked the initial shot but Hendrie responded swiftly to score, ending a remarkably spirited performance from their troubled hosts.

The tactical acumen of the American owner Terry Smith, who also replaced the manager Kevin Ratcliffe when he walked out earlier this season, may be open to question but his side certainly made up for that with their effort and toil last night.

For all their travails, on and off the field, the Football League’s 92nd-placed club gave an excellent account of themselves, never
allowing their Premiership visitors to achieve any rhythm or pattern in their play.

Villa handed the goalkeeper Peter Enckelman, and the defenders Steve Watson, Gareth Barry and Najwan Grayib their first starts of the season and Grayib, a £1.5m summer signing from Hapoel Tel Aviv and playing the left wing-back role, was involved in two of Villa’s best moves of the first half.

In the 23rd minute his fierce strike was well saved by Wayne Brown and two minutes later his cross found Julian Joachim who headed narrowly wide of the target.

But they were little more than half chances and, while Chester hardly swamped Enckelman, they certainly enjoyed more than their share of possession with striker Luke Beckett leading a spirited attempt to inspire City to their second win of the season.

It was his persistence and physical play that allowed him to career down the right touchline, cutting inside Colin Calderwood and forcing Enckelman into his first save. Such was the frequency of Chester’s attacks that the home fans adopted an ironic chant of “Villa, give us a shot”.

Alan Thompson responded with efforts from distance that thundered wide of the mark. But, in the meantime, Andy Shelton had a penalty appeal against Ugo Ehiogu turned down and Neil Fisher almost caught Villa out with a quickly taken free-kick.