Juniors Report
James Richardson
Hull City 3 York City 1
Youth Alliance Cup, 13th October 2001
The Juniors made hard work of this although ended up winning by a comfortable margin against a poor York side. The team performance was slightly jaded with usual outstanding performers Glen Kaveney, Gary Bradshaw and even the imperious Steve Burton looking like they were feeling the effects after playing in the reserves in mid-week.
A scrappy opening 30 minutes saw City take time to settle and start playing the ball around with their usual flair. A Clayton Donaldson deft touch that was turned around for a corner was Citys' only chance of note until the 37th minute when Kaveney let fly from the edge of the area and the ball bounced over the diving keeper. As the half progressed City continued to find their feet and a fine Chris Dixon run presented the chance for Donaldson to turn in the area and double Citys' lead with the last kick of the first period.
The 2nd half was much more comfortable for City and plenty of chances followed although none where taken advantage of. A York forward did have a close range header superbly palmed away by Tigers' keeper Nick Asprey although hadn't threatened at all until a hopeful long ball caught the City defence static and a York forward calmly put them back in with a shout with 10 minutes left. Panic stations? No way, the defence remained solid and the midfield was well controlled by Nathan Peat and City finally killed of the Minstermen when a jinking Danny Mulchinock run was halted only for the City winger to lay the ball off to sub Michael Steer to slot home The Tigers' 3rd through a crowd of players.
Nothing to difficult for City in the end although the amount of players that were in action in mid-week did seem to make the performance slightly more subdue than the previous game against Bradford. Still some impressive displays from Mulchinock, Peat and defender Liam Chapman although perhaps the most impressive player was fullback Ian Crutwell who was defensively sound throughout the game and made some great counter attacking runs in the 2nd half. |
