BILLY McEwan believes York City's loyal travelling fans witnessed two leading contenders for the Conference Goal of the Season competition at Altrincham last night.

The Minstermen climbed back into the play-off positions with a 3-0 victory at Moss Lane last night thanks to Clayton Donaldson's brace and Andy Bishop's 20th league goal of the season.

Donaldson opened the scoring on 24 minutes with a close-range header but it was the second and third goals, also in the first half, that left McEwan purring.

Conference leading marksman Bishop fired an unstoppable shot into the roof of the net from a tight angle for his 23rd goal in all competitions on 33 minutes and, seven minutes later, Donaldson bent a beautiful effort into the top corner from just inside the penalty box.

Donaldson has now netted 16 times this season - and he and Bishop are just one strike short of a 40-goal partnerhip.

About their latest efforts, McEwan said: "The build-up for the first goal was good but you will not see many better in the Conference League this season than the second and third. They were superb finishes from two clinical strikers and I was delighted for them.

"Altrincham have improved a lot since we beat them 5-0 in September but they came up against our two strikers, whose finishing was red-hot. They will probably be the first to admit they should have had five or six more goals each but you know they won't score every time.

"Nobody scores every time they shoot. The good thing for them is that they are in the positions to put them away."

Aside from their goalscoring heroics, McEwan also praised his strikers' workrate, which matched the rest of the side.

He said: "What impressed me most about our strikers was when they lost the ball they worked back tremendously hard.

"That was absolutely fantastic. They worked their socks off as did the rest of the team."

But the City boss did point out that his team cannot afford to start any of their remaining five matches as sloppily as they did last night's match.

Altrincham went close three times and rattled the visitors' crossbar before Donaldson opened the scoring and McEwan warned: "They started lively but we were a bit sloppy. We lacked discipline in key areas."

But the City boss welcomed a chance to hand debuts to youth-team players Alex Rhodes and Nathan Kamara in the second half.

Added McEwan: "We have got a lot of games coming up in a short space of time and it gave us the chance to give players with knocks some time off.

"Alex Rhodes and Nathan Kamara also got a little taste of it and did well."

Medals for away army

CITY boss Billy McEwan hailed the away following at Moss Lane.

"We had nearly 500 supporters away on a Tuesday night and it gives me a little buzz when I see those big flags waving and the enjoyment and pleasure on peoples' faces when we scored the goals."

Updated: 10:13 Wednesday, April 05, 2006