STEVE KITTRICK: Looking ahead to two crucial encounters

We have two big matches to get stuck into after our disappointing defeat against Mickleover on Saturday.
Steve Kittrick's columnSteve Kittrick's column
Steve Kittrick's column

Our focus has to be on Saturday’s tricky trip to Witton Albion.

I know the manager there and we’re in no doubt it will be a tough match and we’ll need to be at our best to get a positive result.

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Hopefully we can come away with a positive result and no bumps or bruises to go into Tuesday night’s derby against York City in the semi-finals of the North Riding Cup.

When the tie was drawn out of the hat, York were struggling at the wrong end of the table and looking down rather than up the National League North.

They’ve appointed Steve Watson, who dropped down a league from managing Gateshead, and they’re now one of the form sides in the division.

I spoke to Steve a few times last season when we had Tom White on loan from Gateshead.

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He’s well-respected in the game and had a good career at the highest level with some big clubs, and now he’s doing well as a manager too.

It’s a game I’m looking forward to, we’ll obviously have to see how seriously York take it and what sort of side they put out, but it will be interesting to see where we’re at in terms of the sides a level above us.

It would be great to get a big crowd in on Tuesday night and create a good derby atmosphere.

Scarborough haven’t played York for a while, so it should be one the fans are excited for.

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It’d be great to get to another final, but we have what is clearly a tough proposition in York to come through first.

We were terribly disappointed not to come away with at least a point on Saturday.

For all the possession we had, we took five passes to shift the ball into the box when it could’ve taken three and with their experience at the back, we played into their hands a bit.

When you get the older heads at the back with a side who have come to park the bus, you need to move the ball a bit quicker and also use the width of the pitch better than we did on Saturday.

Having said that, I thought we defended really well. Our centre-backs did well and Tommy (Taylor) put in his usual decent performance too.

We’ll discuss it at training and look to put it right.