York City left embarrassed as Minstermen have a lover's tiff with the FA Cup

No competition figured more prominently in Bootham Crescent's history than English football's most famous, with many a tale of York defying the odds over the years.

The still-new Community Stadium's biggest crowd of 3,791 - swelled by 1,050 in the away end - turned out for its first game in the FA Cup proper to see if the Minstermen could reach the second round for the first time in 10 years but the answer was no.

Diego de Girolamo, the Chesterfield-born Italian youth international who had three loan spells at York as a young Sheffield United striker took 86 minutes to score the only goal of the game but he and his Northern Premier League Premier Division side had been threatening it for most of the afternoon.

"This is embarrassing," York fans broke away from their "Sack the board" chants to sing in stoppage time. "Wemberlee!" came back from the opposite end of the ground. It is the first time Buxton have reached round two since 1959.

It has been a turbulent week for the Bucs, who lost for the first time this season seven days earlier when they rested players with this tie in mind. Manager Gary Hayward lost his job on Monday - not, it would seem, because of that but because his assistant Mark Ward had planned to miss the game for a family holiday. He did, but for different reasons, with Steve Cunningham the new manager.

If it unsettled them, they were not showing it, taking the early initiative and never relinquishing it. York came into the game in good form too, with one defeat in seven, but you would never know it as a full-strength side put in a very below-strength performance.

York's goalkeeper Pete Jameson was a deserving home man of the match.

The hosts looked uncomfortable from the start, Akil Wright's header only going as far as Jamie Ward. His shot was saved by Jameson, Tommy Elliot's follow-up deflected behind.

Elliot scuffed his shot through when played wide.

York had their chances too, Paddy McLaughlin flashing a shot wide, and Mackenzie Heaney's effort hitting Ben Middleton, but it was only Clayton Donaldson's header midway through the first half that really troubled Theo Robinson, forced to tip over as the veteran craned his neck to Heaney's cross.

It was no turning point, Ward and Chris Dawson wasting opportunities.

The visitors ought to have taken the lead at the end of the half.

Dawson missed a good chance cutting across the ball, Jameson made a great save from Elliot and although he was less convincing from Ward's effort, he did brilliantly to tip Dawson's latest strike over.

Although York started the second half positively, Robinson saving point-blank from Sam Fielding when Olly Dyson's free-kick picked him out at the far post, but a Sean Newton mistake still allowed de Girolamo a chance he ought to have taken.

The striker volleyed just over after the hour and dinked the ball around Jameson shortly after but the ball did not find the net and he could not gather it on the other side of the goalkeeper. In the 69th minute he shot wide again.

It felt like a goal was coming, and coming to him.

It was, though he would have to wait until the 86th minute, shortly after fireworks starting going off overhead. Soon there was a flare lit in the away end, from where fans spilt onto the pitch when de Girolamo hammered a shot in from distance.

York had the ball in the net quickly afterwards, Donaldson's long throw passing all the way through but referee Aaron Jackson blowing for a foul.

When Fielding's header from a Heaney free-kick was saved in the 96th minute, York's embarrassment was complete.

York City: Jameson; Fielding, Brown, Wright, Newton; Hopper, McLaughlin; Heaney, Dyson (Gilchrist 71), Willoughby (Beck 61); Donaldson.

Unused substitutes: Haase, Campbell, Cunningham, Lancaster, Dale.

Buxton: T Richardson; Curley, Granite, Middleton, Fox; Meikle; Clarke, Dawson, Elliot (Hurst 89), Ward (Chambers 74); de Girolamo.

Unused substitutes: Hinds, Dillingham, Houghton, Heath, H Richardson.

Referee: A Jackson