Chester returned to the Football League from the Conference after a 1-0 win over Scarborough.Elsewhere in the First Division, Crystal Palace and Wigan Athletic, both chasing a play-off place, drew 1-1 at Selhurst Park. They pulled two goals back in a three-minute second-half spell through Kevin Sanasy and Danny Cadamarteri, but they needed to win. "It is obviously disappointing to be relegated," Robson admitted, "but the writing was more or less on the wall when we got beaten against Burnley at home three weeks ago. Bryan Robson's rescue mission had long looked doomed and three Wimbledon goals in the first 50 minutes - Malvin Camara, Gary Smith and Wayne Gray on target - starkly illustrated Bradford's jitters. Wimbledon, relegated from the Nationwide First Division a few matches ago, dragged Bradford City down to the Second Division with them when they beat the Bantams 3-2 at Valley Parade, a rare away win. Strange days indeed.Portsmouth 1 Manchester United 0 Stone 36Half-time: 1-0 Attendance: 20,140STATS OF THE DAY P'MOUTH MAN UTD 3Corners13 17Fouls8 2Offsides0 3 on, 5 offShots 6 on, 6 off 2 yellowCards1 yellow Man of the match Dejan Stefanovic: Big and strong, he was outstanding in defence as United threw men forwardStats supplied by Opta. Ferguson, who might have been expected to explode, instead chose to praise the integrity of the referee, Neale Barry.

Ferguson gradually changed the emphasis during the second half, bringing on more and more attacking players - Cristiano Ronaldo, then Darren Fletcher and eventually David Bellion - without causing serious disturbance to the home defence or the raucous crowd.Not until the four minutes of added time was there real threat of an equaliser. In the same attack, bodies thrown in the way of shots by Saha and Bellion did their job before Matthew Taylor unwisely put both hands up to a hooked shot by Neville, bringing unanswered roars for a penalty. Lomana LuaLua, infuriatingly unpredictable, had one of his better moments in sprinting past O'Shea for a low cross that first Wes Brown and then Neville, under pressure from blue-shirted harriers, failed to clear. Closer to half-time, he would save another Saha header and a drive by John O'Shea, one full-back meeting a cross by the other (Gary Neville) and showing why Redknapp needed an extra wide-man on the pitch to stop the pair marauding forward.By that time, however, Portsmouth had a precious goal in the locker, the two United backs having proved less effective at their day job of defending.

As Stone, who had stationed himself at the near post, put it: "I turned round and realised I'd missed it and it just came back to me." Once again he reacted more quickly than Brown, hooking the ball high into the net.In the absence of Ruud van Nistelrooy, who should return for the home game against Charlton on Tuesday, United initially used only Saha down the middle, with Solskjaer and Ryan Giggs both out wide. "We had no composure on the ball in the second half," the United manager Sir Alex Ferguson admitted. "We got frustrated and started just putting balls into their box. When they scored it was a great boost to them and they could just counter-attack."There was greater cohesion earlier on, when Louis Saha headed over the bar after beating Shaka Hislop to Nicky Butt's cross, the goalkeeper then redeeming himself with a low, one-handed save from Ole Gunnar Solskjaer.

Portsmouth have no intention of forfeiting their status this time, and suddenly the figures are beginning to add up. No side outside the top six have won more home matches, and it is now four wins and a draw from five games, prompting an ebullient Harry Redknapp to tell his players afterwards: "If you'd started playing like this a month ago, we could have been in Europe."Only four of yesterday's starters cost the Premiership's supreme wheeler-dealer a fee, but now that more players are fit, his options, as well as the omens, have begun to look more promising "Mid-season we were decimated by injuries," Redknapp said. "Now we've got a squad again, all fighting to get into the team."The balance did not look quite right in the first half here, with Eyal Berkovic flitting behind the front two and Steve Stone out of place on the left. Correctly anticipating a second-half assault as United tried to pull back Stone's 36th-minute goal, Redknapp shrewdly removed Berkovic in favour of the more defensive-minded Nigel Quashie, shifted Stone back to his more natural position on the right and watched United dominate for 45 minutes without finding the touch of quality necessary to break down a defence in which the central pair of Dejan Stefanovic and Arjan de Zeeuw were outstanding.So United failed to score for the first time in 17 games dating back to the 1-0 defeat at Wolves in January that marked the end of Rio Ferdinand's season and - coincidentally or not - the beginning of their decline. Newcastle were now playing against a swirling wind and Walder's conversion of the try would have gladdened Wilkinson's heart.