DAN Parslow is determined to reward York City’s “fantastic” supporters by bouncing back from Saturday’s opening-day defeat against Telford at Blyth Spartans tonight.

A crowd of 2,951 turned up for Saturday’s 1-0 reverse to the Shropshire visitors – a gate that was more than 1,100 higher than the next best attendance in National League North, as just under 1,800 witnessed Kidderminster’s 1-0 defeat to Chorley.

Another sizeable following is now expected to make the two-hour journey to Croft Park and City stalwart Parslow, who will be making his 341st appearance for the club, is in no mood to let them down again.

He said: “The support here is fantastic. We’ve all said that here before, along with the gaffer, but the fact that the fans are still coming out in their thousands in National League North shows what a fantastic club this is.

“We didn’t give them anything to shout about against Telford but, if they can continue to support us, we will strive to do our best and, hopefully, will turn things around at Blyth, where we have another opportunity now. Losing our first game isn’t the end of the world, but we’ve got to put in a performance and get points on the table as soon as possible.

“The fans have had a really tough couple of seasons (with back-to-back relegations) and there’s high expectation that we need to stop the slide. We didn’t on Saturday and that was disappointing, because we all wanted to get off to a good start, so I can understand the frustration around the ground.

“But I’m sure there will be another big following at Blyth and, hopefully, we can put on a better performance by sticking together.”

Blyth were promoted from the Evo-Stik Northern Premier League last term, having been crowned champions after finishing 14 points clear of nearest rivals Spennymoor.

Former Wales under-21 international Parslow, therefore, will not be under-estimating the hosts’ threat despite his desire for maximum points.

“Coming off the back of a very successful season, their confidence will be high and they’ll be riding that wave, so we’ve got to be ready,” he reasoned. “We’ll work hard, prepare properly and try and get a result.”

Parslow went on to stress that the team will also need to up their standards after a “poor” second half at the weekend.

“We had a few good chances in the first half against Telford and, if one had gone in, it would have probably settled us down and we might have gone on to win,” he explained. “Then, their goal on half-time obviously changed the game.

“I thought we were unfortunate to go in behind but, in the second half, we huffed and puffed, but didn’t look dangerous really and it was poor from us. We were pumping the ball up to big Jon (Parkin) hoping he would perform a bit of magic, but they dealt with that and defended well, even though we played into their hands a bit and didn’t come up with a Plan B.

“We brought Muggs (Sam Muggleton) on and must have put 20 balls in their box, but they kept on getting on the end of them.”