Graham and Bamforth on fire as Men's 1sts remain top

Apart from a 10 minute spell in the second half, this was a thoroughly professional performance by the lads at a cold York.

The passing and moving was excellent and the on form strike partnership of Matthew Graham and Jake Bamforth were supplied with good balls from which they were running the York defence ragged.

It was no surprise when Halifax opened the scoring with Matthew Bairstow finding Graham in space at the top of the D and Graham's inch perfect pass found Bamforth who cooly rounded the keeper to score.

Graham again was the provider as he set up Tom Love to finish a fine move. Several other chances were created but the York keeper was in fine form making several excellent saves.

Dave Wheatley was having his best game for Halifax at the heart of the defence, and on the few occasions when keeper Matthew Metcalfe was required he showed good solid technique.

Graham made it 3-0 at the beginning of the 2nd half with a fine reverse stick shot but the team then got sloppy for 10 minutes and allowed York back into the game.

York scored a good deflected goal to deny Metcalfe a clean sheet but normal service was resumed after this wake up call and Josh Sutcliffe scored flicking the ball over the grounded keeper after good work from Simon Arch and Peter Balmforth.

The scoring was completed by top scorer Graham who surprised the York keeper with a powerful push into the corner when a pass looked likely.(5-1 win)

This 4th win on the bounce leaves the team on top of Yorkshire 2 with a vital game against 3rd place Scarborough next Saturday who are 4 points behind but with a game in hand.

With only 4 few games to go there are still 5 or 6 teams in with a chance of promotion so the end of the season run in should be quite exciting.

City of York 3s 1 - 5 Halifax 1s

Scorers : Graham M (2), Bamforth, Sutcliffe, Love