The Blues' goalkeeper played an influential role in Chester's vital goalless draw at home to Stockport County on Tuesday night which secured the club's Football League status.

Danby underlined his shot-stopping skills with a breathtaking save to keep out Anthony Pilkington's goalbound header nine minutes from time.

He said: "It was so important that we won a point against Stockport because nobody in the team wanted to go into the final home game on Saturday against Macclesfield with us still requiring a point.

"We would have had more pressure on us, but we can now relax a little bit more with that pressure off us.

"One of the big reasons why we achieved our goal of staying in the league was the team spirit within the changing room. There was a lot of relief after the Stockport match, but we did well and we deserved it in the end."

Danby, who has been an ever-present in the Chester side during both Bobby Williamson's and Simon Davies' time in the hotseat, praised the work of Davies who has now been handed a new two-year contract.

Danby said: "Simon Davies has done a superb job in his short time as first team manager.

"He has brought a few young lads into the first team who have really done well and we have all worked hard in training.

"Simon has got us all together and he deserves a lot of the credit for pulling us away from the danger zone."

The City custodian reflected on his club's decline since the turn of the year when the Blues were jostling to set themselves up for a play-off place which disappointingly failed to materialise.

Danby said: "We started the season absolutely brilliantly, but for some reason it all went wrong – we couldn't put a run together and we started to concede sloppy goals.

"In our last two games we've managed to cut out those mistakes and that has shown in two clean sheets. If we could have nicked a goal during our bad run I know we wouldn't have been in the position we were in.

"We've got such a young squad of players at the moment – Linny (Paul Linwood) is 24, the same age as me, and if you look at the age of players in our team then you're probably looking at 22 and downwards.

"It is a young squad, but we've all worked hard and I think that has served us in the last couple of games we've played."

- Chester City will not be sponsored by UK Sameday for a fourth consecutive season.

Company managing director, Paul Baker, a lifelong Blues fan, revealed that his last act as club sponsors will be to give the youngsters of the Live Project at New Scene in Newton a day out as guests at Saturday's home match against Macclesfield.

Baker said: "Inevitably I will be asked why we have not continued our sponsorship; unfortunately I would have loved for it to continue into next season and beyond but circumstances have dictated that we must terminate it at the end of the season."