Chesterfield 'got off with one', says 'devastated' Altrincham manager

Ollie Banks’ opener was cancelled out by Chris Conn-Clarke’s equaliser before James Berry scored the winner against his old club with seven minutes remaining.

Despite being gutted at the result, Parkinson didn’t seem to mind that it was one of his former players who stole the points.

He explained: “We have been undone by a moment of magic from a lad we brought back in from obscurity in James Berry. It feels a bit like fate that he had the last say on it. It was a fantastic finish and fitting to win the game for them. Not that I am happy about that, but it is good to see a player like that kick-starting his career again.

"I am devastated we have not been able to see it through and even pinch it at the end. A draw was the bare minimum we deserved from the performance. I am not saying we absolutely deserved to win because we have lost the game and Chesterfield are an outstanding team and Paul Cook is a top, top manager, their staff are unbelievable, Kieron Dyer on the bench, it is frightening isn’t it? Their fans are brilliant.

"If you look at what Wrexham and Notts County did last season, they are ahead of them, and when we have played Wrexham and Notts County in the past, it has not been that close, so that is how much we have improved. We are on the wrong end of a result but the performance was inspiring for me.

"I am ever so proud of the lads. Their performance levels were outstanding and I think everyone knows that as good as Chesterfield are, I feel they have got off with one there."

Altrincham had a good spell in the first-half where they were on top and creating chances and that is what left Parkinson frustrated at the end.

He said: “That is the difference between the very best and the rest. I thought the lads played really, really well, to a top standard, which you have to do. We went toe-to-toe with them and we scored a very good goal ourselves. We got into some good areas and if we had been more clinical maybe the game would have swung in our favour a little bit more, particularly in the first-half.

"I don’t think we played as well in the second-half, I still felt we had moments but I think the first-half was where we could have taken advantage of some of our excellent counter-attacking and excellent passages of play.”

He added: "I am really pleased with all of the lads because to keep Chesterfield to very little everyone had to make good decisions. We had to be brave and play through the press as much as we could because they pressed very aggressively, and the lads did it.

"I know a lot of people would have said that it was a free-hit tonight but we didn’t look at it like that. It was not a free-hit if you want to get in the play-offs. We wanted to come here and get something and we were very close to doing that.”