The Blues retained their Football League status last night by pocketing the point they needed from a goalless home draw against Stockport County in their penultimate league game of the season.

City's point was enough to hoist the club clear of the drop zone and condemn Mansfield Town to the Blue Square Premier Division with Wrexham.

Blues boss, Simon Davies, was understandably pleased with his team's performance to secure safety.

He said: "We worked extremely hard and there were some excellent individual performances.

"I think it all came together in terms of our performance and a bit of luck because Stockport had a good case for a penalty which in other games would perhaps have gone against us.

"Our players know all about pressure – they are grown men and they knew their livelihoods were at stake, and at times in the second half I think the pressure showed with an under-hit or over-hit pass, but we stuck to the task and we got the result we wanted.

"We had the rub of the green, but I'm sure it's a case of what goes around comes around.

"There is a great team spirit in the dressing room at the moment and without that we would have lost against Stockport, and we would have lost against Shrewsbury on Saturday.

"We dug in, but that's what it takes, and if we can build on that with three or four players for next season and have that same team spirit I feel we'll do ever so well.

"My heart was in my mouth last night in the first and 90th minutes! It's just hard when it's 0-0 and especially when you're playing on a greasy surface because anything can happen."

Davies took time to praise his goalkeeper John Danby who produced a spectacular one-handed tip-over save from Stockport striker Anthony Pilkington near the end of the match to secure Chester their much-needed point.

He added: "If John Danby can get anywhere near that level consistently then we'll do well to hold onto him.

"But for now we've got him and we're very happy to have him.

"But there are other players in our team of the same calibre and first and foremost we need to retain their services and collate three or four other bodies and then we can give it a go next season.

"I feel we have three or four really high-quality players in our team and we've got quality youngsters coming through the ranks.

"We'll put the right mix together for next season and then we'll have a good team for the future."

Davies admitted it was a relief to feel safety after a tense finish to the campaign.

He said: "We can now relax and not look over our shoulders to see what division we're going to be in.

"We'll give Macclesfield the respect that they deserve on Saturday and approach the game properly so that we pick up the three points.

"I never at any point believed we would be relegated because of the team spirit in our dressing room.

"We played really well in our home game against Lincoln a few weeks ago despite losing the match, but since then we've gone on and put a number of good performances together.

"I know we never do things the easy way, but that's the nature of the beast. I'm happy to be here and I enjoy the job. "