Colin Murray believes tomorrow’s All Star benefit match will help put ‘smiles back on the faces’ of everyone at Chester.

The fundraiser has been put on at just three weeks notice by popular broadcaster Murray, former Liverpool and England striker Michael Owen and re-elected Blues board member Jeff Banks, in light of the shock news that Chester needed to raise £50,000 within a month to avoid going out of business for the second time in eight years.

Murray –  host of BBC 5 Live’s Fighting Talk –  who first became involved in Chester when they reformed in 2010, has helped bring together a host of star names for the match, including Liverpool legend Ian Rush, Jason McAteer, Clinton Morrison and Danny Higginbotham.

Former Chester boss Neil Young has helped get together a Chester Legends XI, who will be managed by Kevin Ratcliffe, including former favourites Iain Howard, Paul Linwood, Ryan Lowe and Matty McGinn.

The Northern Irishman explained: “We were going to do a Q & A but then we thought where’s the fun in that? Then me and Michael were going to hire out the biggest club in Chester and do a DJ set! I’m glad we went for the game instead!

“We didn’t just want to give the club a handout or just ask for money. We wanted to do something fun and I don’t think it’s a bad think if 1,500 people walk up to the ground with smiles on their faces.

“I think the buzz has started the past two days, people are getting excited about and ticket sales are up. We wanted to get over 1,500 in and without wanting to tempt fate, I think we’ll get over that now.

“The worry was it would end up just being myself, Michael Owen and about 200 people. But we fired a few texts off that day and we said if we get six replies then we’ll do it. We’ve ended up getting a squad of over 20.

“Michael and Richie Partridge really got the ball rolling. They got (Jason) McAteer involved and it’s just gone from there.

“The Chester side has got some really good players in it. I’m relieved big George Horan has a game on Friday night!

“We’ve got some big raffle prizes to giveaway. (Jamie) Carragher has signed a Liverpool shirt, we’ve got signed boxing gloves from Tony Bellew and we’re all going to sign both the tops and raffle them off.

“Come down, bring you family, friends, please let’s make it noisy for all the players. But obviously support us rather than the Chester lads!

“Jeff Banks has been brilliant, he's working round the clock to make this happen.

“It’s very unfortunate the situation the club has found itself in, but it’s not quite the situation we found the club in eight years ago.

“Hopefully having people like Jeff back on the board will help the club move back in the right direction and avoid something like this happening again.

“All the volunteers, the people at the club, they’re the real stars.”

To an outsider, Murray’s love affair with Chester may seem a strange one, but he explained how he feels part of the ‘migration’ to the lower leagues, after helping aid the Chester cause back in 2010.

“Of course I’ll always be a Liverpool fan and I still go to watch them but I think I’m part of the migration to the lower leagues,” he said.

“I was at Television Centre one day and Jeff rang me, I don’t know how he got my number! He said we’ve got no team, no manager, we’re locked out of the ground and we’ve gone out of business – can you help?

“I still remember that first game back when we got Pat (Nevin) and Perry (Groves) on the bench. After about 20 minutes our left-back shanked the ball out of play and a fella behind me just went: “Same old story!” I thought that was fantastic and we had that connection after that.

“I loved the craic coming back up through the leagues but when the Pot Noodles stopped being sold, we didn’t get promoted again!”