Today I'm going back ten years to 2011 and York City's visit to Solihull Moors for an FA Trophy 1st Round Replay. I remember it being a cold and slightly misty night and I was certainly grateful that I only had a few miles to travel back to Warwick after the match.
I prize this particular programme which was posted to me a few days after the match because a cock up on the evening meant the no match programmes arrived for purchase. I wonder how many of the 235 attendees that night didn't actually get hold of a programme and, as City went on to make it all the way to Wembley that season, having a complete set of programmes from the whole run is something that makes me truly happy.
Manager Gary Mills' City side were truly fortunate to still be in the competition after the initial game at Bootham Crescent where a lacklustre City were rescued by a late late equaliser scored by John Challinor in the third of four added minutes at the end of the match. City made no mistake in the featured Replay, played three days later at Damson Park, Solihull and once they took the lead in the first half there only looked to be one winner with City running out winners by three clear goals.
Gary Mills had always made it clear that the FA Trophy was an important competition for him and he always tended to play a full strength City side in every Trophy game. In the Second Round York trounced Salisbury City 2-6 before dispatching Ebbsfleet United 1-0 at home in the Third Round to reach the last eight. Their Quarter-Final was a glorious 1-0 win on the road once again, this time at Blundell Park, home of Grimsby Town which set up the epic two-legged Semi-Final against promotion rivals Luton Town. York gunned down their Bedfordshire based nemesis to go to Wembley as part of the first of two wonderful games at Wembley in the space of eight days. York won the FA Trophy that year by beating Newport County 2-0 in the Final. It all seemed such a long time ago that they had come within a minute of being eliminated from the competition in its First Round back in the previous December.
CRB Match No. 1859
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