POLICE have blamed a "drunken idiot" for making a hoax bomb threat that delayed a York City match.

Officers received a phone call at 1pm, two hours before Saturday's game against Bristol City kicked off.

The caller claimed there was a bomb at KitKat Crescent, but left no specific information. The stadium was cordoned off for one-and-a-half hours while it was thoroughly searched by officers already on duty at the ground.

Nothing was found, and the match went ahead at 3.15pm, a quarter of an hour late. Investigators managed to trace the call to a public telephone in Exhibition Square, but the phone itself is not covered by CCTV cameras. They have also been replaying a tape of the hoax call in case the voice is identifiable.

A spokesman for North Yorkshire Police said: "We carried out a complete area search with all the officers who were already at the ground on duty for the football and those who were on public order duty in and around the Bootham area. It appears to have been a drunken idiot."