TODAY'S transfer deadline might not apply to York City due to their National League status but, to join in the fun, we take a look at the club's worst-five recruits during the January window since the system was introduced in 2002/03...
1 Shaq McDonald
The one glaring exception during an impressive 2014 January transfer window that saw Nigel Worthington recruit Nick Pope, Russell Penn, Adam Reed and John McCombe, whilst also making Keith Lowe’s loan stay permanent. Striker McDonald came with a glowing recommendation from former Peterborough boss Barry Fry, but looked a little boy among the giants Worthington had assembled and resembled a match-day mascot on the few occasions he got to warm up with the side pre-match.
He was released without making a single appearance at the end of the season, before surprisingly landing a two-year deal at Championship club Derby during Steve McClaren’s first spell as manager at Pride Park, where he also failed to break into the senior side. McDonald did, however, manage four games on loan at Cheltenham as they were relegated from the Football League and, last season, scored two league goals in 15 National League outings for a Halifax side that went down from the National League.
Parting company with Derby, McDonald moved on to City’s FA Trophy hosts this weekend – Nuneaton – in the summer, but is no longer listed on the National League North club’s official website after scoring just once in 14 matches.
The former Celtic and Scotland striker had not kicked a ball in eight months after parting company with Scottish second division outfit East Fife when he surprisingly rocked up at Bootham Crescent during the last January transfer window. With a controversial past off the pitch, the move was seen as the last-chance saloon for the 33-year-old forward and a roll of the dice by struggling boss Jackie McNamara.
It was a gamble that didn’t pay off with Riordan managing just one start and three sub appearances, while looking well short of the fitness levels required to play in the Football League. Described now as unattached, Riordan is unlikely to get another surprise transfer-window opportunity today.
York City was the 13th stop-off point for the former England under-19 international who, at the last count, has racked up 27 different clubs, including six in 2016 alone. Initially signed on loan from Kettering, he agreed permanent terms until the end of the 2011/12 season during that January’s transfer window.
Having bizarrely over-celebrated the final goal in a 7-0 victory over his parent club in December by ripping his shirt off in front of a startled David Longhurst Stand. Ashikodi’s erratic behaviour, ill-discipline and suspect temperament didn’t improve following the extension to his City stay in January.
Given a surprise chance in the FA Trophy semi-final, first leg against Luton, he almost got himself sent off in the third minute for a crude challenge. He was consequently only trusted with another 16 minutes of game time for the remainder of the double-winning Wembley season, prior to the dead-rubber final fixture of the regular league campaign against Forest Green, which he started.
Leaving North Yorkshire with just one goal in 11 matches, the Antigua & Barbuda international, who once played a single game for Glasgow Rangers in the SPL, has been on the move ever since. Still only 29, he was last heard of at Isthmian League division one south side Chatham Town, where he was released in November after storming off the pitch following an argument with a team-mate, leaving the team down to ten men for the final 15 minutes after all the permitted substitutes – including Ashikodi himself seven minutes earlier - had been made.
Seemingly signed on the strength of a Championship hat-trick scored for Peterborough at Hull more than three years earlier, Sinclair was brought to Bootham Crescent on 2015’s January transfer deadline day by Russ Wilcox in a one-and-a-half year deal. Two goals in 26 games later, the ex-Nottingham Forest attacker, who also spent frustratingly long spells in the treatment room, was being loaned out to Guiseley, while this season he has been turning out for National League North part-timers Altrincham and Bradford Park Avenue.
Following spells in US College football, Iceland and a trial in Israel, not to forget Northern League stints with Guisborough and Shildon, Middlesbrough futsal striker Everson was given a surprise chance by Gary Mills during the January of City’s first season back in the Football League – a month that also saw fellow underwhelming arrivals Jameel Ible and David McDaid get deals with the Minstermen. Everson would only make two substitute cameos, amounting to half-an-hour of pitch time, before seeing out the rest of the season at Gateshead in the Conference, where he did manage two goals in his first three games, but none thereafter.
Further spells followed in Iceland and Sweden for Everson who, at 29, now plays in New Zealand for Hawke’s Bay United, managed by former Southend and Stockport striker Brett Angell.
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