TRANMERE Rovers’ eventful run in the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy was brought to a dramatic and bitterly disappointing end by John Sheridan’s struggling Spireites last night.

On more than one occasion during a seesaw contest, Rovers looked to be on their way into Saturday morning’s draw for the northern area semi-finals. But they repeatedly allowed Chesterfield – languishing in the lower reaches of League One and without a home win since September 17 – to claw their way back and had no answer to Craig Westcarr’s injury-time winner.

The Wirral visitors had needed penalties to see off Port Vale in the first round before accounting for Accrington Stanley in a second round tie which had to be played twice when an opposing player was seriously injured in the initial game.

The final chapter in Rovers’ JPT story for this season was written last night as the Spireites capitalised on some uncharacteristically slack defending from Les Parry’s team.

The first goal of the evening arrived on nine minutes from the trusty left boot of Adam McGurk. The Irish forward blasted home a classy volley from 25 yards after collecting a neat header from Mustafa Tiryaki.

The early goal paved the way for an entertaining night of football – although the excitement often came from defensive mistakes, rather than high quality play.

On 32 minutes, home defender Dwayne Mattis was fortunate to escape with only a yellow card, rather than a red, when he cynically hauled down McGurk on the edge of the penalty area.

ŠThe resulting free-kick came to nothing but Ole Soderberg was called into action three minutes later when Robbie Weir’s piercing pass played in Lucas Akins, who cut inside from the right wing and hammered in a low left-footed shot which was parried to safety by the Chesterfield stopper.