7:58pm Saturday 21st November 2009
By Sam Elliott
AFC Wimbledon 0-1 York City
The Dons poor form continued today as York City became the latest club to escape Kingsmeadow with maximum reward.
Michael Rankine’s goal midway through the second half means Wimbledon are still searching for their first league win since October’s pummelling of Forest Green Rovers.
It’s three home defeats on the bounce for Terry Brown’s team. They created next to nothing as another 4,000-strong crowd went away disappointed.
The manager accepts his side simply have to do better against the division’s big-hitters – but refused to read the riot act to the out-of-form players despite their timid surrender.
Brown said: “If I look at our season so far, we have seriously struggled to match the top teams in this division and that is disappointing.
“They always seem to have a little bit more than us and I felt York were physically stronger than we were.
“They deserved to win and they restricted us to very little. To be honest we also restricted them too, but even at 0-0 they were the team more likely to get the winning goal.
“But I won’t fault the effort of the players. I have not ripped them to pieces in the dressing room. Defensively I thought we done really well but clearly we didn’t create enough.
“That is something we can’t dwell too long on. York are a side that could possibly get promoted this year.
“We are where we deserve to be. We’re a midtable side at the moment and we had better make sure we don’t become a possible relegation side. That can easily happen so Tuesday night at home to Ebbsfleet now becomes very important to us.
“We’ve gone too long without a win and our home form needs improving.”
The first half was painful viewing with the card-happy referee John Hopkins taking centre-stage. Only half chances for the visitors’ Alex Lawless and for Danny Kedwell, the Wimbledon top scorer, just before the break saw either keeper tested.
The football took over after half-time and Steven Gregory’s effort – deflected off Brett Johnson – nearly had enough on it to send the ball beyond Michael Ingham.
Richard Brodie soon after saw his header clawed onto the underside of the crossbar by Seb Brown but the goal was coming.
It arrived after 64 minutes when Sam Hatton gave possession to Chris Curruthers, the midfielder pinged the ball into the box, and unmarked Rankine nodded into the bottom corner unchallenged.
Wimbledon looked beat from that moment on and failed to awake the redundant Ingham as they waved the white flag.
York boss Martin Foyle said: “It was a great win and it’s a big one for us. We knew it was going to be a battle and we had to dig in.
“The standard of refereeing was very poor and we had to cope with that. He’s even managed to give an offside from a goal kick! But it doesn’t matter too much when you get all the points.”
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