AS York City prepare for arguably the most fraught final day of their history with the threat of sixth-tier football hanging over the club, we’ve decided to look at five other seasons when the team’s fate went right to the wire.

Warning – it’s not for the faint-hearted!

1 York City 0 Aldershot 1 (1961/62)

Chasing only the club’s second-ever promotion, a side boasting the likes of Barry Jackson and Happy Wanderers pair Norman Wilkinson and Tommy Forgan would have emulated the feats of Sam Bartram’s 1958/59 side with a triumph over Aldershot in front of 7,321 at Bootham Crescent.

The Minstermen had been in and out of the promotion places six times during the season and were looking to cling on to the fourth spot they had held at the end of the previous three fixtures.

But it was the Hampshire visitors, still with an outside chance of going up themselves, who scored the only goal of the game to leave Tom Lockie’s men hoping for favours elsewhere before the days of everybody’s final fixtures being staged simultaneously.

Due to a vastly superior goal average, the Minstermen remained above Carlisle on goal difference and were one point ahead of Bradford and Aldershot, meaning they had to rely on favourable results from the trio’s remaining matches.

The Cumbrians were first up and quickly extinguished City’s hopes three days later with a 2-0 home triumph over bottom club Chester.

Bradford would also do their bit and leapfrog their Yorkshire rivals to finish fifth, whilst Aldershot went down to Southport.

City though had a summer to reflect on what might have been as a win against the Shots would have been enough to clinch a place in the old third division.

The disappointment was revisited, meanwhile, a couple of years later when it emerged that centre-back Jack Fountain had been found guilty of match-fixing that season, with the game he was implicated in a 2-1 home defeat to Tranmere.

2 York City 4 Halifax 0 (1964/65)

City would have to wait another three years to climb up a division when new attacking trio Paul Aimson, Andy Provan and Dennis Walker wreaked havoc.

A home record of 20 wins and one draw remains the best in the club’s history, but two points were still needed when a third-bottom Halifax team visited Bootham Crescent.

Memories of the Aldershot slip-up were far from distant and, although future Minsterman Archie Taylor’s pace provided a threat on the flank for the West Yorkshire team, history would not be repeating itself.

An Aimson brace, coupled with a header from diminutive captain Billy Rudd and a Provan effort, ensured that Lockie’s side finished third just a point behind champions Brighton, but also only two ahead of unlucky Tranmere in fifth.

3 Brighton 1 York City 3 (1995/96)

In perhaps the most bizarre final-day fixture in the club’s history, the Minstermen travelled to Brighton for a Thursday morning contest after the original match between the two clubs on the penultimate weekend of the campaign had to be abandoned when home fans reacted angrily as their team plunged headlong into the Football League’s bottom division. Alan Little’s men, therefore, headed to the south coast for the peculiarly-timed contest still needing a point to lift them outside of the drop zone and above Carlisle, so as to avoid following their already-relegated hosts out of the division.

With the local constabulary focussed on the aversion of any further trouble, a City side, who had received national acclaim earlier in the season for winning 3-0 at Manchester United but had ran into trouble following four straight defeats without scoring a goal before the Goldstone Ground trip, duly secured safety thanks to goals from Gary Bull, Paul Stephenson and Scott Jordan.

4 Manchester City 4 York City 0 (1998/99)

The Minstermen’s 2-1 third-tier home victory over the future 2012 and 2014 Premier League champions is often cited as the most-obvious nadir in the Etihad club’s history.

Less-heralded in wider football circles is the pivotal moment that same season’s return match at Maine Road has proven in terms of the recent fortunes of their opponents.

A crowd of 32,471 saw Joe Royle’s team thump their North Yorkshire visitors courtesy of Paul Dickov, Kevin Horlock, Jeff Whitley and Danny Allsopp goals.

The Minstermen, now managed by Neil Thompson following Little’s dismissal in March, had not been in the relegation places all season and went into the match sixth-bottom two points clear of Wycombe and Oldham – the sides directly below them in the table.

But Paul Emblen’s 83rd-minute winner for Wycombe at relegation rivals Lincoln would send Thompson’s team down, as Oldham also preserved their status by completing a 2-0 home triumph over mid-table Reading.

Eighteen years later, the Minstermen have never plied their trade at such rarefied heights again and are now desperately hoping not to be operating three levels below next term.

5 Dagenham 0 York City 1 (2012/13)

Despite taking ten points from a possible 12 in their previous four contests, the Minstermen were still not safe from the threat of becoming the first promoted Conference club to go back down from the Football League at the first attempt as almost 1,200 away fans made the journey to East London.

New boss Nigel Worthington’s team went into the match three places above the drop zone but one of the teams below them were their hosts, meaning it would only take a defeat, coupled with a draw for Barnet at a Northampton team already in the play-offs and a home victory for Wimbledon against Fleetwood whose season was over, to condemn the Minstermen.

Captain Chris Smith’s 67th-minute goal in a 1-0 triumph made results elsewhere academic for the visitors and, while Wimbledon won, Barnet’s 2-0 defeat spared Dagenham the drop too.