In a new feature, we’re asking City fans to write about their favourite game from their time following the club. The first of these pieces sees Stu Wilson looking back on an autumnal afternoon in 1997 when Alan Little’s Minstermen staged an improbable comeback to beat Carlisle United 4-3 in Division Two.
Picture the scene. It’s a Saturday in late October, the nights are starting to come in, and Bootham Crescent is not yet floodlit as the game enters its final stages. City are 3-1 down, and some people are starting to drift out of the left side of the Longhurst stand to either watch the last few minutes by the First Aid hut, or to leave the ground altogether.
It’s quite cold, and you can see your breath vapour in the air as you scream at Martin Reed for impersonating a professional footballer. All the while, there’s a familiar, and not unpleasant smell of cooked potatoes from the British Sugar facility drifting across the ground. It was usually either that or the smell of cocoa, and neither were unwelcome.
On this day, York have probably bottled their playoff charge with this terrible game. It’s only early in the campaign, we’d been doing quite well, and found ourselves flirting with the playoff places just a few games into the 97/98 season. Rodney Rowe was doing great, scoring 6 from the opening 11 games, and we looked like we’d actually be a strong contender in the 2nd Division, having already played away at the highly fancied Watford, Grimsby and Bristol City, the eventual promotion winners.
It was a home game against Carlisle, who had recently been promoted from the 3rd Division. They were on a terrible run, having lost their last 5 games before coming to Bootham Crescent, and they must have felt that coming to a team that was on the up and around the playoff spots was really not what they needed.
However, this game had gone badly wrong for City. A great start had seen Rowe add to his haul after just 14 minutes. He’d received a long kick from Samways and controlled it, laying off to Graeme Murty. Gary Bull played a lovely 1-2 with Murty, and the cutback found Rowe in a crowd of opposition players. Despite the heavy presence of the Carlisle defenders, Rowe flicked the ball into Tony Caig’s net, and York were 15 minutes in, a goal up, and following the script. This is where the enjoyable part of the game so far had ended.
Carlisle hadn’t sat back, and attacked York in search of an equaliser. Matt Jansen would eventually play much higher up the leagues with Palace, Blackburn and Bolton, but today he was charging at the York defence. First he skips a challenge from Reed, but he doesn’t avoid being scythed down by Steve Bushell (that would 100% be a red card today). The resulting free kick is quickly taken and lifted across the box for Carlisle’s Stephane Pounewatchy to head in unmarked. Imagine conceding from a set piece. It doesn’t bear thinking about.
Carlisle were level on 25 minutes, and continued their assault on York like King Sweyn, the Danish Vikings, and their Anglo-Saxon mates. However, instead of burning the York garrison, Carlisle scored a 2nd goal to take the lead on 35 minutes. Reed can’t stop a cross into York’s box and it’s hooked away by Andy McMillan, but nobody else responds from the defenders, and Billy Barr is able to judge the flight of the ball as it drops. Before McMillan can get to it, Barr unleashes an incredible volley into the top right corner. Wayne Hall shouts something at Martin Reed, but Reed’s missed that as well.
At half time, we wonder how we’re 2-1 down to a team that’s having an awful season, and had lost 8 from 13 so far. We also wonder how “Barbie Girl” by Aqua has ended up as the UK no.1 as it plays over the tinny and static-plagued PA system.
It looked like York would get an opportunity to recover, as Carlisle’s Andy Couzens was sent off for his second yellow. It seemed like York had some hope of pulling it back, and they’d had some help with that red card. Much like William The Conqueror coming to drive off King Sweyn, what originally looked like help, actually just made things a lot worse. William destroyed York’s suburbs and laid waste to crops in the area, and Carlisle scored a 3rd. Those two incidents caused an equal amount of anguish, I’m sure. Archdeacon’s cross is met by Jansen, who outjumps Tony Barras to head back across goal. McMillan doesn’t track McAlindon and he darts forward and scores at the back post, sliding in to volley home ahead of Samways’ despairing dive. 3-1 down to ten men, and York City just can’t have nice things.
So, we get to 80 minutes and it’s not looking good. Neil Tolson and a very floppy haired Jonathan Greening are on in place of Bull and Reed, and York actually turn the tide a little, making forays forward, particularly down the wings. City are given a free-kick some 30 yards from goal. It’s so far away that Tony Caig doesn’t want a wall. All the players are on the edge of the area, waiting for the cross from Stephenson, but it never comes. Instead, Stephenson drops the ball into the 6yd box, where it bounces right in front of Caig. The kind of bounce that keepers absolutely hate, as he dives, only to see it then fly over the top of him and into the net. It’s probably a consolation, but Neil Tolson grabs the ball and sprints back to the centre spot anyway. It’s 2-3 with 8 minutes left, and York would need something very special to get something out of this.
Luckily, special is what we get. McMillan and Bushell work the ball out to Stephenson who would normally cross from 25yds out and wide left, but this time, on the corner of the penalty area, he unleashes a blockbuster into Caig’s near post. I suspect that again, everyone was waiting for the cross, which is why Caig failed to cover the near post, but Stephenson’s effort is a thunderbolt. Again, it bounces in front of Caig, and he must be cursing his choice to be a keeper when goals like that are scored. I remember the TV replay on ‘Goals on Sunday’ and realising that the camera hadn’t been able to track the ball as ‘Stevo’ smashed it into the net.
So, as it happens, we did get something out of this. We all breathe a sigh of relief that we haven’t capitulated against ten men, and been beaten whilst up in the higher reaches of the table. The relief from the players is summed up by Tolson standing on the advertising board and giving double fists in the air to the jubilant Longhurst stand. One Pop Stand fan is so excited, they fall over the fence and onto the pitch. It’s pandemonium. Two goals in three minutes have resulted in a 1-3 deficit becoming a 3-3 draw and a point out of a game that a few moments ago, we were getting nothing from. Let’s take a point from a rough game and move on to Wigan away next week, right?
But what’s this? Some lovely passing work on the edge of the Carlisle box looks promising. Hall, Greening, Bushell, Murty, back to Bushell who takes a touch, and when he realises that the defender has been slow to close him down, he hits a left footed shot from 25 yards that buries itself into the bottom right hand corner. You’ll never guess what happens to the flight of the ball. Perhaps it’s something the lads worked on in training, but for the third time in five minutes, City have scored by shooting from distance, and the ball bouncing right in front of Caig in the six yard box. The Carlisle keeper gets up and screams at his defence, but I’m not sure they can be blamed for the impact of gravity on a leather sphere. The City faithful are in raptures. All those people in the corner by the First Aid hut are grateful they didn’t leave. All those that left are feeling very silly. The chant of ‘dodgy keeper’ rings around the ground as the young Jansen looks at this teammates and thinks “stuff this lot, I’ll go and play with Attilio Lombardo instead”.
The game ends, and we can scarcely believe we’ve got a win from that. Three goals in five minutes showed that this City side had the mettle to come back from 3-1 down. To continue to fight, and to push for a win, when a draw would have been an acceptable result. Alan Little gives Stephenson a great big hug, and in the post-match interviews, Carlisle chairman/manager Michael Knighton says that his team need to keep their heads down and get up the table. It seems those aliens really did a number on Michael’s grasp of reality, as Carlisle are relegated at the end of the season, returning to Division Three after just a single season in City’s division. York, on the other hand, had a very strong first half of the season, sitting in third place at one stage, but a poor second part of the campaign saw us struggle and we finished 16th after obtaining just five wins after Christmas. Even the return of Marco Gabbiadini couldn’t save our failing season, and we limped over the finish line with a 2-1 win at Carlisle in the penultimate game.
This match is often remembered for the five minute turnaround that won us the game, but there’s much more to it than that. We were a strong team at this time. We were in the playoffs of what is now League One, and we didn’t look out of place. I remember the smells, sounds (before I would lose my hearing), and the familiarity of the same part of railing that my Dad and I would lean on in the Longhurst Stand. We would obviously win games coming from behind after this match, but the manner of the win, the manner of the goals, and the never-say-die attitude of that team sticks with me more than the simple stats. For those of us who have been around a long time, these kind of wins were rare. It’s only in recent times that we’ve seen a York City that attacks teams until the final whistle. Back in ‘97, this was not the norm, and so to win this game, and in this way, made it a memorable victory.
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