About this match programme
By Richard Snowball After Barry Lyons had taken over as York City’s manager towards the end of the 1979-80 season, he struggled to improve the side. Coming into the last match of the 1980-81 campaign, City were staring re-election in the face. The match played on May 5, 1981 against mid table Northampton Town attracted the lowest crowd seen at Bootham Crescent for a League match of 1,167 since it opened in 1932. York lost the game 2-1 and sank to the bottom of Division Four for the first time in their history. They were, however, re-elected gaining 46 votes of the 52 available. Between mid-January and April 1981, they lost 10 of 11 matches from which they never recovered, and from Christmas 1980 till the end of the season, they only collected a mere 10 points from a possible 44, with no player managing to score more than nine goals during the season. Acknowledgement This facsimile of the match programme was created by the publisher of There’s Only One Arthur Bottom, the daily email newsletter for fans of York City FC, and TOOAB contributors Richard Snowball, Terry Espiner and Paul Bowser. www.tooab.com