A FRUSTRATED Adam Hinshelwood was not happy with the York City stadium announcer during their 2-1 win over Dagenham & Redbridge.
Tyrese Sinclair’s 43rd minute opener had capped off a professional first-half from York, who had dominated possession and reduced their opponents to zero shots in the opening 45.
That hard work was quickly undone, frustratingly to Hinshelwood, as a corner kick was bundled home by Josh Umerah.
Ollie Pearce was later shown a second yellow card and subsequently a red card, with a one match suspension to take place, as City were reduced to ten men.
But Hinshelwood’s side never gave up, as debutant Junior Luamba won a stoppage-time penalty, which Alex Hunt confidently tucked home.
However, Hinshelwood was angry with the announcement of the goal over the tannoy, which stated ‘better late than never’, and felt that it showed a lack of respect to a Dagenham side that he was full of praise for.
“It’s twice now that I’ve heard ‘better late than never’ from our people on the tannoy, what is that all about?” Hinshelwood vented.
“We’re playing against a tough team, it’s disrespectful to the opposition.
“They’ve come here, they’ve thoroughly deserved to get themselves back into the game.
“Are we York and we should just beat everybody now? Is that our expectation?
“We stick together as a team and as a club, let’s go through it together, let’s not be disrespectful and say ‘better late than never’.
“I think it’s disrespectful from our point of view, we’re grafting, we’re working hard, we’re not the finished article.
“I thought that we played unbelievable football, the level of football is good in my opinion.
“We’re not quite getting the rub of the green and we’re getting sucker-punched by set-pieces.
“We’re not dealing with set-pieces well enough and that’s costing us, but the lads have given everything out there.
“It’s a tough part of the season, and I think now more than ever, we’ve all got to stick together.
“I think it’s disrespectful from our tannoy people to say ‘better late than never’ at the end of the game, I’ve never heard it before.
“ We’re trying really hard, it’s not always going to go our way and we’re in a tough and competitive league.
“We’re doing our best to win games of football, and now more than ever, we’ve got to stick together.”
Hinshelwood would later go on to apologise for his outburst against the matchday announcer at the end of his post-match press conference, saying: “Sorry I feel pathetic now, I’ve calmed down completely!
“It was just raw emotions, I just felt a bit of tension around the place and we’ve all got to embrace being in a wonderful place.
“That tension comes because the side has done so well, I want the lads to embrace being in this position, I want the fans to embrace being in this position and I want our announcer to get behind the team rather than it feeling like a dig.
“Anyways, I apologise for that but I won’t change, I won’t get any media lessons!”
Discussing the general performance, Hinshelwood added: “We definitely could have played better than we did, but let’s not be disrespectful to the opposition, they made it difficult and I think that the best teams with the best players in the world that cost millions of pounds, struggle to break down a well-organised defence.
“Unfortunately, it’s not the open pretty game that we want to see and it’s a respect to our team.
“We are going to see it more and more here, it’s about sticking together, being patient.
“We’re getting boos from the crowd because we’re not playing it forward, we’ve been playing this way all season.
“We’re going to stick to what we do which has served us so well, up until now.
“We are going to get more games like this, but it’s a tough league. Dagenham & Redbridge are no mugs, you see the quality that they have got on their bench and all teams every week, we say the same thing, that we’ve got to be at our best.
“I thought that at times, it was a really good performance, especially in the first-half.
“We didn’t really take our chances and then we get hit by a sucker-punch of a set-piece, where they crowd on our goalkeeper.
“The game could go either way, but full credit to the players, they kept going, they kept believing and it’s a sign of a good team.
“We probably weren’t at our best, through no fault of our own but through the shape of the opposition, but we grinded out a win.”
Hinshelwood also hopes that the late winner and three points can gift his players some belief, which the City boss feels is lacking as of right now.
“I’m hoping that this win gives us a bit of belief, that we can do it and are sticking to what we’re doing.
“A great bit of skill from Junior, but the frustration comes because we let them back in from a set-piece.
“Set-pieces at the moment are costing us a lot, the two goals last week were from the second phase of set-pieces, today it’s just gone straight in under our nose, and we’ve not dealt with it.
“That’s where the frustration lies, we’re not the finished article and we’re quite a new group that has come together.
“I just sensed a bit of nervousness for the first time, and I think that they’ve created that from how well they’ve done this season.
“We’ll try to reassure them and keep sticking to how we play, hopefully this result can help with that.”
