YORK City goalkeeper Jon Worsnop has confessed he was disappointed for the club’s “Championship-standard” supporters following the 2-0 derby defeat to National League North neighbours Harrogate Town.

More than half of the 2,800 sell-out, capacity crowd at Wetherby Road was made up of visiting fans, who saw Joe Leesley and Liam Agnew goals help Harrogate secure victory in the first-ever league meeting between the two North Yorkshire clubs.

It was a painful experience for the Minstermen faithful – some of whom will remember their side competing in the English game’s second tier 41 years ago – with a remorseful Worsnop admitting: “We’ve got amazing supporters who turned up for a local derby in the kind of numbers that you don’t always get with a Championship club for an away game.

“That made it a brilliant occasion and I was so disappointed for all of them.”

Manager Gary Mills, meanwhile, was the target for a section of the away followers’ frustration at the final whistle, but the Bootham Crescent chief retains the full support of his keeper, who added: “I have every faith in the gaffer.

“I think he’s a great gaffer and I’m sure he’ll put things right.”

Despite defeat meaning City fell 11 points behind their top-of-the-table hosts, Worsnop went on to argue that they were not discernibly superior to his team-mates, but that Mills’ men need to cope better with sides determined to claim their scalp, given the club’s pedigree.

“I don’t think Harrogate are any better than us,” the former Chester net-minder insisted. “Their keeper was busier than I was, but they had a game plan that they followed and we put in a performance that none of us were happy with.

“The fact that we are York means we are on a hiding to nothing and teams seem to raise their game by 20 per cent. Opposition players want to show our gaffer and their gaffer what they can do but, that being said, we have enough on paper, as a group, to be doing better than we are.”

Of the two goals he conceded, meanwhile, the Bradford-born 34-year-old argued the first was contentious, but both could have been avoided.

“For the first, their player put me on my backside and I think he played for the penalty, but then I wish our strikers could have done that to their keeper,” Worsnop pointed out. “I also thought Theo (Wharton) had his heels clipped in the build-up and that should have been a foul, but it all came from our shot that was saved and that has to be put right.

“For the second goal, I think their lad ran off Theo and went on to get a free shot, which shouldn’t be happening either, because our strikers didn’t get many free shots.”

Leesley beat Worsnop from the spot for the 16th-minute opener and the latter also revealed he will be ignoring the advice of his team-mates and relying on his goalkeeping instinct for future spot kicks, saying with a wry smile: “One of the lads pointed to my right and I thought he knew something I didn’t and, maybe, that he’d played with him before, so I went that way.

“But I won’t be doing that again, because I normally look at body language and that suggested he’d be going the other way or down the middle, which he did.”

While reasoning that top-scorer Jon Parkin was missed on Harrogate’s 3G pitch for his goal threat and presence, along with fellow powerhouse striker Michael Rankine who continues to be sidelined due to high blood pressure, Worsnop stressed that he would rather play the ball short from goal kicks and resist the temptation to hit the big man up front.

“I think teams are fearful when they see Jon or Ranks’ name on the team sheet, because they know they are a handful,” Wosnop declared. “Jon also nicks goals.

“He didn’t have the busiest of games at Salford, but ended up winning us the match by scoring twice. The pair of them can be outlets too but, if truth be told, I like to play out from the back and keep possession, because teams can’t hurt you when they haven’t got the ball.

“Going long is a gamble, even if Parky or Ranks are playing, because you’re hitting a 70-yard ball that’s in the air for four to five seconds with bodies around the strikers, so there are no guarantees you will get to the flick-ons. I like to give the ball to the full backs or centre halves, because they can pass the ball better and my job is to find a York shirt.”