YORK City skipper Simon Heslop has admitted that he has never felt lower during his 11-year career than after his team’s 6-1 thrashing at Gateshead.

The Minstermen captain has played for 14 different clubs but the humiliating humbling ranks as his biggest embarrassment as a professional just four games into plying his trade for his home-town club.

Heslop, 29, also queried the team spirit of the new Bootham Crescent squad, assembled by Jackie McNamara over the summer.

He said: “Being honest, it’s the worst I have felt in football and I think we have let the manager down. The lads are absolutely devastated.

“Losing 3-1 or 4-1 would have been totally not good enough, but 6-1 is an embarrassment and we all need to have a long, hard look at ourselves. We weren’t good enough in the first half, to be honest, but got ourselves back into the game just before the break.

“We then gave a couple of cheap goals away and I was trying to regroup the team and say to the lads ‘no more’, but that wasn’t the case unfortunately. It’s a massive wake-up call for us.

“We thought the team spirit was good, but maybe we need to have a little look at that and reassess because, in the second half, you don’t concede five goals if the team spirit is good.”

Despite the huge setback, though, Heslop remains convinced that the club can still succeed this season, adding: “The squad is good enough – 100 per cent. We’ve seen that in pre-season and during the first three unbeaten games.

“You don’t become a bad team over night. We’ve had one bad half of football, but it was only one half.”

Just under 500 supporters made the trip to Gateshead and Heslop went on to stress that the players now owe the travelling faithful a much better performance at pre-season title favourites Forest Green on Saturday.

“The fans have been great so far and we’ve not given them enough to cheer about,” he confessed. “Hopefully, we can improve and get a result for them on Saturday.

“It will be a tough game, but we’ve got to do everything we can to stick together. I’ve played Forest Green a few times and they’ve spent a lot of money on some good players, but it might be the type of game we need.

“They will be the favourites to win with the squad they have assembled and that might take the pressure off.”