IF the Milk Marketing Board ever needed a football club to best represent them, they should look no further than York City.

The current incumbents of City’s red and blue colours may not always play dreamy, creamy football, but what they produce in unfathomable gallons is character and grit.

They have a lotta bottle. Indeed, they have a lotta, lotta bottle as they demonstrated so amply to topple Newport County by the odd goal in three.

Consider the pre-kick off scenario. If Newport were to prevail – and remember they had walloped City 4-0 back at Spytty Park five month earlier – they would leapfrog the hosts on goal difference and likely fracture City’s dream of making the play-offs.

Effectively needing to win their remaining six outings before the arrival of the men of orange from South Wales to keep alive their play-off crusade, City gathered all their resources of resilience to chalk one off the slate, leaving five to go.

Defiance was draped right across the 14 men and true who appeared at Bootham Crescent.

Take the hosts’ midfield and attack. First-half raids fizzled out with tedious monotony with all the advancing City players suddenly spiralling into misdirected, over-hit or touchline-bound passes whenever they entered the final third of the pitch.

It was if the red-clad ranks were wearing defective hearing raids as they neared the Newport goal. Guidance systems were all over the shop and radar needed to be re-booted as the sharp-end sloppiness provoked a jittery feeling among the Crescent faithful.

But did City shrivel in the April sun? No, they hauled themselves from nervous parity into positive superiority almost as soon as the second half started.

Goalkeeper Michael Ingham clutched a fierce Danny Rose cross to his chest and then launched a mighty boot for Michael Rankine to chase and then be felled by a lunge on his shoulder from sentinel Chris Todd, who was booked.

Now came more boldness. Rankine had missed his last spot-kick when, if he had scored, City could well have won at Kettering.

This time Newport players flagrantly tried to skewer Rankine’s attention.

Leading the less than subtle outbreak of ungentlemanly conduct was midfielder Jamie Collins, who even tugged at his shirt before referee Darren Bond eventually signalled the kick to go ahead after what seemed an age.

Top scorer Rankine though was in the zone. He ignored all of the unedifying argy-bargy and crashed the ball low and unerring into the net sending ’keeper Glyn Thompson the wrong way.

Then 20 minutes from time, battering-ram Rankine showed a more subtle, creative side.

Retrieving a partial clearance, he adroitly jinked inside a marker and pinged over a cross that begged for a decisive touch. The in-form Jamie Reed, who had a first-half net-buster ruled out for handball, duly obliged with an exquisite header for his sixth goal in the last seven outings.

Just after the brace of strikes City fans were treated to two exceptional saves from Ingham, especially the first in which a zipped low free-kick from Rose was only espied in the last seconds for him to pounce on the ball on the goal-line and preventing it spilling into the path of an onrushing Griffin.

That unquenchable spirit was even bettered in between the Rankine and Reed ripostes by skipper Chris Smith.

In the space of three minutes Smith launched himself into a block tackle to deny Griffin.

Then, as the same striker prepared to fasten on to a whipped free-kick, Smith twisted himself to get in front of his target and headed the ball over his own crossbar.

If those two interventions did not inspire there was always midfield fulcrum Scott Kerr.

In the first half he was the lone City man in possession who remained tidy, composed and accurate.

As elegant then as a swan in a tuxedo, Kerr proved in the second half to be as feisty as a terrier in finally staunching the shenanigans by Newport in advance of Rankine’s penalty.

And if the spirit hints at flagging on the pitch, City boss Gary Mills will always muster yet more drive.

Deep into six minutes of stoppage-time, during which Newport’s arrears were halved by a neat Collins half-volley – bagged from a hoofed clearance following Rankine clipping a shot off an upright after a lung-busting 40-yard run – Mills sprung into action.

As the home apprehension momentarily increased, the canny City manager exhorted the exhausted Rankine to suck in more air and carry the fight to the Welsh outfit one last time.

See – on the pitch and off the pitch, more bottle and spirit than in a distillery’s depot.


Match facts

York City 2 (Rankine 50pen, Reed 70), Newport County 1 (Collins 90)

York City: Michael Ingham 9, Daniel Parslow 8, Chris Smith 9, David McGurk 8, James Meredith 8, Liam Darville 6, Scott Kerr 8, Jonathan Smith 6, Jamie Reed 7, Michael Rankine 8, Peter Till 6.

Subs: Chris Carruthers 6 (for Till 46), Levi Mackin 7 (for J Smith 64), Ashley Chambers (for Reed 81).

Not used: Leon Constantine, Andre Boucaud.

Key: 10 – Faultless; 9 – Outstanding; 8 – Excellent; 7 – Good; 6 – Average; 5 – Below par; 4 – Poor; 3 – Dud; 2 – Hopeless; 1 – Retire.

City’s star man: Chris Smith – defensively solid as granite.

Newport: Glyn Thompson, Paul Bignot, Gary Warren, Chris Todd Andrew Hughes, Darryl Knights (Yemi Odubade 61), Jamie Collins, Danny Rose, Kerry Morgan (Sam Foley 72), Charlie Griffin, Steven Lennon.

Subs not used: Scott Rogers, Glyn Garner, Tom Miller.

Booked: Morgan 32, Todd 48.

Shots on target: City 5, Newport 5.

Shots off target: City 2, Newport 5.

Corners: City 4, Newport 5.

Offsides: City 3, Newport 2.

Fouls conceded: City 16, Newport 10.

Referee: Darren Bond (Lancashire). Rating: Over-officious sometimes, but also showed commonsense.

Attendance: 2,565 (154 from Newport).

Heart of the match: Rankine’s nervless wait before cooly executing his penalty.

Save of the match: Ingham’s safe gathering of a fierce free-kick that flew low through the wall.


Head to head - Chris Smith v Charlie Griffin

AFTER the alarm of a free header which scraped a post in the fourth minute, captain Chris Smith admirably cajoled and corralled his defence into a superb rearguard action.

Griffin, Newport’s most muscular forward, was out-jumped, out-fought and out-thought by Smith for the rest of the tussle and it was a pity his and the rest of the backline’s efforts did not result in another City clean sheet.