YORK City supporter Morgan Bruce previews the Minstermen's upcoming match with Maidenhead United.
Following on from the eventful draw at home to Halifax Town on Saturday, York City are faced with another long journey south midweek - when they travel to Berkshire to face relegation-threatened side Maidenhead United.
Since York were promoted back into the fifth tier in the 2021/22 season, the Magpies have been an opponent that they have enjoyed facing.
Across the five games between the two sides, Maidenhead have only won once with York winning twice and the teams settling for a pair of draws.
This week’s game is a rescheduled fixture from January when poor weather across the country caused a a lot of games to be cancelled. In the National League that weekend, only two games successfully went ahead showing the impact of the weather that weekend.
That would have been a quick turnaround from when York hosted Maidenhead for the first time this season as the two teams played at the LNER Community Stadium on the last weekend of November.
In that game, York showed why they’re competing at the top end of the table as they cruised to victory, scoring six with five different goal scorers as the game ended 6-2 to the Minstermen.
York started incredibly quickly that day as they were already 4-0 up after 32 minutes, with the fourth goal being scored by former Maidenhead player Ashley Nathaniel-George, a man who joined a very select group of players to score both for and against York at the LNER Community Stadium since the club moved there at the start of the 2021/22 season.
It’s also a fixture that he has experienced a lot of success in as he has scored in four of the five games between the two teams.
However, he will unfortunately not be able to feature in this week’s game due to the red card that he picked up against Halifax.
He won’t be the only absentee after that game with most notably Ryan Fallowfield missing out due to the nasty head injury he got in that game following his collision with Leeds United loanee and former York man Luca Thomas.
With that red card and Fallowfield’s injury, Adam Hinshelwood’s squad that will travel to York Road will be looking slightly thin.
Illness spread throughout the camp in the lead-up to the Yorkshire derby at the weekend meaning that Salford loanee Junior Luamba missed out altogether while midfielder Dan Batty could only make the bench with a second-half cameo appearance, so it will be interesting to see how the Minstermen line up.
This squad will be facing a Magpies team with a bit more confidence as they are experiencing an uptick in form, having won three of their last six.
They are still in the relegation zone but are only behind fellow strugglers Aldershot on goal difference, so they will be looking to pull themselves above the red line when they host York on Tuesday while City will look to continue to put the pressure on Barnet at the top.
