PETERBOROUGH United boss Barry Fry watched York City's tempestuous 1-0 home defeat to Woking last night with the intention of trying to negotiate a deal to take top scorer Clayton Donaldson to London Road.

Posh director of football Fry is already believed to have tabled a £100,000 bid for the 17-goal striker but that comes nowhere near the Minstermen's valuation.

City's board have also issued a statement signalling their intention to hold on to their prize asset unless a club makes an offer that cannot be refused.

Speaking before his journey to last night's game which saw unused substitute James Dudgeon and substituted left-back Nathan Peat sent off along with Woking coach Matt Crossley in a stoppage-time touchline brawl, Fry said: "We've offered a good sum of money for Clayton Donaldson but York are not keen to let him go.

"He's out of contract in the summer and we could go to a tribunal and get him a lot cheaper then, but we're in a position where we want to go up and we want to have him on board as soon as possible.

"I've spoken to their managing director two or three times and I will be heading up again to have another few words with him to see if I can sort something out."

In response, City have released a club statement, saying: "Peterborough and several other clubs have expressed an interest in Clayton Donaldson. As yet, we have not received any formal offer.

"The club has offered Clayton an extension to his current contract and our preferred option is that he remains a York City player to assist our efforts to gain promotion to the Football League.

"However, if a considerably high offer is made during the transfer window, it would be something the board of directors would have to consider if the offer was in the best interests of York City and our supporters."

City, meanwhile, are likely to be without the services of Peat and Dudgeon for three matches following their double dismissal along with Crossley.

Crossley head-butted Dudgeon after the City substitute tried to intervene as a peacemaker during a touchline tussle between Neal Bishop and Woking's Danny Bunce.

Players and officials from both teams then got involved in an unseemly fracas in which Peat threw several punches.

Commenting on the scenes, City boss Billy McEwan said: "In all my 40 years in the game I have never been associated with anything like that. Their coach left the bench and stuck the nut on James Dudgeon and I'm still in shock.

"You get a reaction from players when that happens because they want to protect their team-mate. Now, I will lose the services of two players while they will be without their coach for three games. What's all that about?

"Everybody saw what started it all off. That's GBH and you would get arrested in the street for it.

"It's up to the fourth official to make sure these things don't happen because I have been fined for putting one foot outside the technical area before.

"James is obviously upset and he might take action against the lad. I don't want anything like that at my football club or to be associated with such trash.

"Discipline is a big thing to me and I have told that to my players but we did not instigate it."

McEwan, who was also engulfed by the scrimmage, checked the match DVD immediately after the game to get a clearer impression of the incident but the evidence has been damaged by the heavy second half downpour.

Peat's fate will, therefore, depend on the referee's report with McEwan saying: "He should not be getting involved in that type of thing.

"We have a code of conduct regardless of what happens but I will have to see the official's report before fining anybody."