Hello, good evening and welcome to you, our assorted bunch of sweet treats.
Now, we know full well that there are trips to our old friends Barnet and Cambridge now shining brightly on our horizon – but you should know how the fixture list works by now. Before we get the chance to sample the hospitality of our dear neighbours, we have to get the best china out for the visit of York City this weekend, a team once described by us as “York City”.
Like us, the Minstermen have been slow out of the blocks and have lost one extra game where we’ve drawn one. That’d explain why we’re a point above them in the table at the moment, wouldn’t it? York’s last outing was a three-goal win at Newport – you don’t need us to tell you that’s a better result than the result we managed down there, so does that mean we should be worried?
Not particularly.
York’s away form this season, admittedly in just three games on the road, has been a proverbial mixed bag – a win, a draw and a defeat, with two clean sheets. That sounds alright, to be fair. But we have the benefit of being on a two-match winning run at home after seeing off Hartlepool and Plymouth, two teams who had made respectable enough starts at the top of the table.
Last season’s meeting indoors against the Minstermen saw us reduced to 10 men after Andy Bond was sent off, before clawing our way back from two goals down – only to concede again with 15 minutes to go. It was only the third time ever that York had stopped us picking up so much as a point off them, which points towards a rather solid record against our Northern chumps.
In fact, we’ve never failed to score past York in the 15 times we’ve gone up against ’em.
The bookies are cautious on this one, we sense. We’re best priced at 13/8 for the win, with York 39/19 (Marathon). We’d give serious thought to the idea of both teams finding the back of the net in this one (10/11), with a repeat of last week’s 2-1 victory tempting us in a number of places at 10s. Chris Whelpdale to score at any time is 19/5 with Stan James, dontcha know…
Don’t get too bullish about this one, though. It won’t do us too much good to go into next week’s match at The Hive coming off the back of a defeat – it’d be much better to get the win this weekend, rise high into the top half of the table and then look down at our Hertfordshire neighbours with a knowing smile. All in good time, though, all in good time…
BoroGuide’s York City club profile – loves the jobs you hate… within reason
