For May 19th I'm going back 28 years to 1993 and York City's Division 3 Play-Off Semi-Final 2nd Leg against Bury.
Back in the day, Bury were City's bitterest rival. I never did quite understand why because Bury's fans never seemed to make a trip to Gigg Lane any more difficult than was the case for other Northern teams. But by God it mattered to City. We had special anti-Bury songs and always seemed to take a larger than usual mob to Bury. Perhaps it was residual bad feeling dating back over five hundred years to the War of the Roses? Often such trips were on Boxing Day for the "Boxing Day Massacre" although no-one ever seemed to get massacred thankfully. Eventually the bitterness seemed to peter out and first Scarborough and then Luton Town took on the mantle of most hated rivals. I'm not even sure who wears that particular crown today with other clubs in National League North being almost too small to bother with.
These days you have to spend a long time scouring the minor league tables to find Bury. Sadly, due to chronic financial mismanagement by previous owners, Bury fans have been obliged to form a new "phoenix" club which was forced to start again at the very foot of the pyramid down in the North-West Counties League Division 1 North (the 10th level of English football compared to York's 6th level). Whisper it quietly but I actually feel sorry for them.
By 1993, some of the anti-Bury feeling amongst City fans had begun to dissipate and they had become an obstacle on York's Play-Off road to Wembley. City had finished the regular season in fourth place missing out on the automatic promotion places by four points. Bury were further back in seventh place having gathered twelve points fewer than York. This made York the favourites and following the goalless first leg at Gigg Lane, York were favourites to finish the job back home at Bootham Crescent.
9,206 packed into Fortress BC that night. It was one of the largest crowds that I was ever part of there, with only games against Liverpool and Hull City attracting more. Bury made a real fight of it and we had to wait until the hour mark before York got their noses in front thanks to a header from York-born number 10 Gary Swann. Now Swann wasn't noted for goals at City. He scored only six in 95 appearances for the club but two of the six were critical to York's Play-Off hopes that season and, as a result, he will always be fondly remembered as the man who got the goals when it really mattered. The final half an hour of the Semi-Final seemed to take forever and we never felt safe until the referee called an end to proceedings with the final whistle. One-Nil on aggregate after 180 minutes might not sound gripping but no York fan present that night will ever forget it. City were going to Wembley for the first time ever.
CRB Match No. 841
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