WORCESTER City are sweating on the fitness of former Premier League striker Lee Hughes ahead of their FA Trophy trip to York City.

Hughes, now 40, missed last weekend’s narrow 2-1 defeat against National League runaway leaders AFC Fylde with a knee problem, but the Blues are hoping he can recover in time to face the Minstermen.

The 6ft striker once made the Championship’s PFA Team of the Year after scoring 32 goals in the 1998/99 season for West Brom, whom he went on to play for in the Premier League.

He also commanded transfer fees of £5million and £2.5million following respective moves to Coventry and back to the Hawthorns.

Hughes has more than 330 senior goals to his game and has already scored 11 this term after plundering 16 for Worcester last term – his first campaign at the Midland part-timers.

If Hughes is on the sidelines, he will be joining two more of the Blues’ seasoned campaigners with ex-Doncaster, Bristol Rovers and Leyton Orient centre-back Sam Oji ruled out by a quad injury and former West Brom, Watford and Leicester defender James Chambers still struggling with a hamstring problem.

But visiting boss Carl Heeley, who took over the managerial reins from ex-City youth coach Richard Dryden in 2010, will be able to call on the experience of 33-year-old skipper Danny Jackman in midfield.

Jackman has 311 appearances to his name at Football League level for Cambridge, Stockport, Gillingham and Northampton.

Full-backs Tyler Weir (nine games for Hereford) and Cieron Keane (two for Notts County), along with midfielder Ebby Nelson-Addy (four for Hartlepool) and striker Colby Bishop (four for Notts County), are the only other players with professional experience likely to feature in the away side’s starting XI.

Worcester, who are currently 13th in National League North, are the division’s lowest scorers on the road with just seven goals from nine away fixtures.

After a poor start to the season in which they only managed two points from a possible 21, Heeley’s men have, however, won seven of their last 12 games.

The Blues are currently groundsharing with Bromsgrove after three seasons playing fixtures at Kidderminster, having sold their home for 108 years – the Victoria Ground – in 2013.

It was planned that the proceeds from that sale would fund the building of a new stadium on the edge of the city, but the funds proved insufficient for that project and the club are now waiting to hear whether a new planning application for a 4,130-capacity stadium will be successful.

Worcester’s highest-ever finish in the football pyramid was when they came third in the inaugural season of the Alliance Premier League – the forerunner of today’s National League.

The furthest they have progressed in the FA Trophy is the quarter-finals – a feat they have managed four times, with the last occasion being in 1982.

Worcester (probable): Ross; Weir, Sharpe, Hutchison, C Keane; Evans, English, Nelson-Addy, Jackman, Steele; Bishop.