Oxford 2 City 1

If York's opening encounter at Oxford was a Subway sandwich, it would have been a foot-long steak and cheese; meaty and satisfying at first, you feel on top of it around the halfway stage, but it gradually gets the better of you until the last two mouthfuls leave you wanting to wretch. Late strikes from Matt Green and Michael Creighton dashed City's chances of pulling off a surprise victory at pre-season title hopefuls Oxford, but in the game's post-mortem Martin Foyle will surely find more reasons for encouragement than concern.

In fact, for the first hour of the match, the Minstermen looked on course for a near-perfect away performance, as they took the lead through Richard Brodie before half-time and frustrated the home side by being prudent in possession of the ball and tenacious without it. City dominated the opening exchanges, and could have scored as early as the fifth minute when Brodie headed down a crossfield pass, only for Levi Mackin's shot to be parried by Ryan Clarke in the Oxford goal. Then, as Oxford inevitably found their feet and began to push forward, they could only muster half-chances as the likes of Ferrell and Barrett harried their midfielders on the ball.

Their best chance of the first half probably came when James Meredith, whose frequent wanderings from left-back were a black mark against an otherwise disciplined City back line, committed a foul way over on the right flank, and after City failed to clear, a floated cross found the head of commanding centre-back Creighton. He could only head tamely at Michael Ingham, though, and as Oxford grew weary of their dominance in possession failing to turn into clear chances on goal, they began to commit extra men forward, a risk which backfired twelve minutes before the break.

After one in a series of Oxford attacks broke down, City moved the ball out of defence swiftly, and a punt downfield was chased by Brodie, who was able to find the gap between the last defender and Clarke before rounding the latter for a seemingly free run at the empty net. As we all know, however, Brodie doesn't score easy goals, and he contrived in this case to strike the post under relatively little pressure, but he was well-positioned for the rebound and made no mistake at the second attempt to put City into a 1-0 lead which they held at the interval.

Immediately following the restart, a series of lapses in concentration by City players began to undermine the organisational aptitude they had shown in the first half, but the lapses went unpunished and for the next ten minutes or so the pattern of Oxford being successfully contained and York looking at least slightly threatening on the break was resumed. The closest either side came to scoring was an Andy Ferrell strike from the edge of the box which sailed wide. It was not until Oxford introduced the nippy Green, effectively playing as a third striker alongside Midson and Constable, that they took charge of the game and began to look increasingly like scoring - Danny Parslow came close to relieving them of the burden when his sliced interception of a cross whistled past Ingham's post.

City made an introduction of their own on 68 minutes, in the form of £55,000 signing Michael Gash. Yet although his competitive debut contained some hints that he will add something to the side to justify the fee - including an excellent piece of interplay between him and Brodie which put his strike-partner clear on goal, only for the offside flag to be raised - by then City were swimming against the tide and the front pairing found themselves isolated from the action. As the game entered its final ten minutes, both sides were camped in the visitors' half, and an excellent chance for an equalising goal was wasted when a free-kick from a central position 20 yards out was struck wide of the top-right corner. This, coupled with some heroics from Ingham in the City goal, seemed to create a growing feeling among both sets of fans that the Minstermen were set to hold onto their lead against the odds, but the resistance finally broke in the 88th minute when Green broke clear of the defence and lofted the ball over the outrushing Ingham. Although a desperate goal-line lunge from City's last man seemed to have preserved the lead, the linesman adjudged the ball to have crossed the line and the scores were level.

The home crowd, near-silent for the preceding hour and a half despite numbering around 6000, suddenly found their voice, and started fervently roaring the U's towards the East Stand in search of a stoppage-time winner. City, deflated by the blow of the equaliser, continued to sit deep in their own half and seemed hopeful that the dogged defending which had protected their goal for so long prior to the goal would see them through to the final whistle. However, the defence was breached for a second time just minutes later as a goalmouth scramble found its way to Creighton inside the area, whose low drive never looked likely to miss the target with Ingham making a rare lapse of judgement and leaving himself stranded.

Despite failing to escape with even a point, though, York's players showed a level of spirit and persistence rarely seen in the last campaign, and the performances of some of the new additions gave genuine cause for optimism. Alex Lawless, deployed on the right side of a narrow four-man midfield, was composed on the ball throughout and intelligent in his choices of pass, while Andy Ferrell put in an energetic display on the opposite flank. In addition to Meredith's lack of positional sense, however, City's performance also highlighted at least one potential weak spot in the line-up; Brodie and Rankine looked unsuited as a strike partnership despite some excellent hold-up play by the latter, and hopefully a fully-fit Gash will combine more effectively with one of the two. Overall, though, the early signs are positive, and a repeat performance in City's next two home games against Rushden and Forest Green should more than compensate for the three points snatched away at the death yesterday.