Hartlepool 2 York City 1: Minstermen need miracle to stay up, admits McNamara

The midfielder headed home with 18 minutes remaining to leave the Minstermen, who had been given hope when Kyle Cameron cancelled out Nathan Thomas’ opener, 11 points adrift of safety with just four games remaining.

Hartlepool were gifted an opener in the 24th minute when the visitors’ failure to clear a Lewis Hawkins corner left Thomas with the simple task of converting from six yards.

Things went from bad to worse as defender Dave Winfield was given his marching orders for a second bookable offence.

But York continued to battle and levelled on the stroke of half-time when Cameron capitalised on being unmarked to head Luke Summerfield’s corner into the net.

Hartlepool created the better of the openings after the interval, Scott Flinders brilliantly turning away Woods’ long-range volley after Luke James had headed narrowly wide.

However, the goalkeeper was unable to repeat the trick when Woods nodded Carl Magnay’s cross in off the inside of the post.

“We need a miracle,” conceded boss Jackie McNamara. “It’s going to be difficult, especially when we give teams opportunities like we have today. “We dropped two points at home last week and the week before, and we only have ourselves to blame for the situation. “I felt we had to win today and we haven’t done that. We’ve paid the price for making too many mistakes.”

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