YORK City’s on-loan midfielder Lewis Hawkins believes being the underdogs in today's FA Cup clash at Swindon Town will be “good for a change”.

York’s history makes them a regular target for giant-killing in National League North – even Swindon boss Phil Brown said City were an “ex-League club; it’s not like they are a non-League club”.

But, with League Two outfit Swindon plying their trade two tiers above the Minstermen, the Robins are clear favourites to progress to the second round.

On top of this, Hawkins reckons Swindon’s poor current form could also work to City’s advantage.

He said: “It’s good for a change. Instead of teams coming here and thinking York are going to win every week, we can go there with no pressure and just go for it.

“The last couple of results haven’t gone their way and if we can get off to a good start, we can get the fans on them and put them under pressure.

“The FA Cup is big for the club. We want to get as far as we can, get the big teams, which will help with money, and the lads can go and play some good stuff.

“Hopefully we’ll get a big crowd there, have a nice big pitch and we can go and express ourselves, play some good football and try to get a result.”

Hawkins, who is on loan from Hartlepool United, made his first appearance for York in the 4-1 home defeat to Bradford Park Avenue last week.

Of that game, he said: “I think we were well on top (in the first 25 minutes) and had them penned in but obviously the sending-off changed things.

“I still think we were the better side but obviously we were going to get caught on the counter-attack with them having the extra man.

“Then we came out in the second half and conceded the two goals early, but I thought if we didn’t concede them we would have been right in the game.

“We kept them in, kept going for it and we were just dying to get that goal. When we did get it, I thought we could end up getting back into the game but, towards the end with 10 men, your legs start tiring.”