YORK City boss Martin Gray summoned his players in for Sunday morning training following a performance he described as “an embarrassment, a disgrace, absolutely appalling and disgusting.”

The Minstermen were humbled 4-1 at part-timers Curzon Ashton with home striker Niall Cummins hitting a first-half hat-trick, having also had a 28th-minute penalty saved by Adam Bartlett.

Sam Walker joined Cummins on the scoresheet after the break before City top-scorer Jon Parkin was sent off midway through the second period following an off-the-ball clash with home captain Jonathan Hunt.

Debutant and second-half substitute Alex Kempster went on to grab a consolation for the ten men and was absolved of any criticism by Gray who, nevertheless, refused to hold back with his assessment of a game that followed just seven days on from the 1-0 home triumph over National League North leaders Salford.

“It was the same team and formation as last week, but what was different was the mentality and I’m not taking the blame for that,” the City boss fumed. “I’ll blame the players, because that was an embarrassment and a disgrace.

“Representing York City like that is unacceptable and the players will be in on Sunday morning as a punishment and they’ll be worked hard all week. I had a family day booked, but this has to come first and I hope the players are hurting as much as I am, because it’s the worst I have felt since coming here.

“I’m a winner and I want the players to have the same desire as I do. I can only apologise to every fan who was here, because the performance was absolutely appalling.

“Where was the character and pride? You have to earn the right to win games and that was disgusting.

“I can only do so much but, when players cross that white line, I can’t control what’s going on in their minds and what went on wasn’t right if you want to push on in the game and be successful because you need a winning mentality week in, week out and we haven’t got that yet. We probably had around 500 fans who have worked all week and paid good money to be at the match and the players have let then down, the club down and the chairman down and I won’t accept that any more. “There was a mentality not to concede against Salford, but their kid got a hat-trick in this game and, no disrespect to Curzon, that shouldn’t happen if people are doing their jobs right. Players needed to put their bodies on the line the same as they did against Salford.

“Otherwise, how do you progress without changing personnel, which we can’t do with 11 games left. We’ve got some real experience in the team and we’re looking for leadership out there.”

Parkin will be suspended now for three matches due to violent conduct and Gray was frustrated by the 25-goal forward’s actions, adding: “I think it was enough to be a sending off from what Jon has told me and the referee was right on top of it.

“He got involved in the aftermath of something off the ball and you expect better from an experienced player. Jon also had a couple of chances that he missed, which were the kind he’s been putting away all season, but he’ll be out for three games now and he’s such a big, valuable player for us.”

Despite refusing to accept there were any extenuating circumstances for the defeat, Gray did admit that he made an error when he replaced an injured Alex Pattison with left-back Marcus Williams instead of Kempster on seven minutes.

“Losing him (Pattison) wasn’t ideal because he’s been a great player for us and the change that was made wasn’t the right one, so I hold my hand up and apologise for that because I made a mistake,” Gray confessed. “Marcus Williams came on and it probably should have been Alex Kempster, but we’d only seen him play 90 minutes in a reserve game and chose to go with experience.

“Kempster was great, though, when he came on and he has given me a really good selection headache for next weekend. He gave us energy and great movement and was unlucky not to get two goals.

“He could come in for Jon Parkin, because he can play up top or just off the main striker.”

City are also waiting to hear if right-back Connor Brown has incurred a three-game ban too, with some confusion over whether his second-half booking, for his reaction after being fouled for a free kick, was his 14th of 15th of the campaign.

Brown also conceded the penalty and Gray lamented: “It’s common that his bookings are quite soft ones, so his yellow card was another disappointment.”