Today I'm going back 12 years to 2010 and York City's end of season Play-Off Semi-Final 2nd Leg at Kenilworth Road, home of Luton Town. I covered the events and programme from the 1st Leg a few days ago and this can be found in my blog if you missed it, along with more than one other match-up between the two sides over the years. For some reason, down the years almost every game between the Hatters and the Minstermen seems to have been crucial to one or other (or both!). I'm very pleased to report that, on most such occasions it was York who seemed to come out on top!
The featured game was played on a bank holiday Monday afternoon with a capacity attendance of 9,781. You will recall that, perhaps against the run or play, York had secured a slender single goal advantage right at the end of the 1st Leg thanks to a goal from Richard Brodie. Luton reeked of (over)confidence that they would overturn that deficit in the 2nd Leg on their own patch. As the teams walked out I wondered how many colour blind individuals in the stadium that day might struggle to distinguish between Luton's orange shirts and City's red and blue halves? Teams seem to take every opportunity to promote their second or even third choice kits these days so it was perhaps a surprise to see York turn up in their home outfit? Perhaps it was mind games as the Hatters had failed to beat those red and blue halved shirts the previous week? Irrespective, there was a tremendous atmosphere inside the ground and we settled down to watch York battle as if their lives depended on it.
The first half was nervy with little to choose between the sides but just after half time York won a free kick on the edge of the Luton penalty area and, when keeper Mark Tyler failed to hold the shot, Chris Carruthers was on hand to fire the rebound home. City had the lead in the game and a precious two goal lead on aggregate. I didn't celebrate however. I had been unable to get a ticket for the York end and had had to content myself with a ticket in amongst the Luton fans. As things turned out, it was probably the safest place to be. I was bursting inside mind! The game called for calm heads and York kept theirs whereas the Luton players became increasingly frustrated and frantic culminating in the sending off of Adam Newton in the 90th minute for dissent.
At the final whistle, as City's players began to celebrate in front of the away end, Luton's fans spilled on to the pitch and a cordon of stewards was formed aimed at keeping the pitch invaders away from the away end. Now it's not that unusual at the last home game of the season for fans to enter the pitch, especially if something has been won but, in this case there was a malevolent atmosphere inside the stadium and you knew that this wasn't going to be a celebration of Luton's achievements over the season. Sadly the pitch invaders attempted to attack the celebrating York players who had to take refuge in the Oak Road end with the jubilant City supporters, something that I've never seen before in almost 45 years watching football. Coins were thrown and it got very nasty for a while. Much was made over subsequent days of this being organised violence by members of the English Defence League but my impression was that it was more spontaneous than organised. Irrespective, those bad losers from Luton simply made the victory even more satisfying and, if they were right wing extremists, then I loved it all the more! Fuck off Nazis!
Amidst the scenes at the end it was easy to forget that York had secured their passage to the National League Play-Off Final at Wembley where they would face Oxford United less than two weeks later. Sadly promotion was not to be as York succumbed 3-1 to Oxford United. They would have to wait two more years for their return to the Football League.
CRB Match No. 1749
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