York City's Scott Lindsey: I can live with abuse if fans get behind the players

The Minstermen's first Football League game for a decade, at home to Bristol Rovers on Saturday in front of a sold-out crowd of around 8,500, should be a real celebration.

But the mood was very different when their competitive programme started a week-and-a-half ago with a 2-0 defeat to Lindsey's former club Crawley Town in the preliminary round of the League Cup.

As the game went on, the fans grew mutinous, chanting support for Stuart Maynard – sacked during pre-season over an apparent disagreement over control – and disdain for his replacement, Lindsey.

Lindsey says it does not concern him as long as it does not affect his players.

"It didn't really bother me," he repeatedly insisted in his pre-match press conference. "When you're a football manager you've got to be bullet-proof, thick-skinned.

"An inexperienced manager would probably have crumbled. I'm not going to crumble.

"It kind of doesn't matter to me.

"I want the players to really focus on doing their job really well and negativity's never good, I know that.

"We want it to be positive and I'm hopeful it will be like that going forward but for the next 46 games if I get dog's abuse and the players don't, I'll be happy with that."

But it is hard to see York having a successful season if the stadium is as toxic as it was that night for any sustained period.

"It's massively important," said Lindsey when asked about the value of the right atmosphere at home. "If the fans are onside we're obviously doing well on the pitch. We want it to feel like it felt last season.

"I think the longer the negativity does go on, it probably does creep into the players, which then can't be a good thing.

"The important factor is we've just got to win games – rule no 1.

Hopefully the noise quietens down and we can get on with our job, which is hopefully winning promotion.

"That can only happen by us doing well on the pitch and the fans enjoying what they're seeing and really getting behind the players. All I want is them to really support the lads.

"I want to make it really clear: I really understand it. It's not that I'm scratching my head going, 'Why are they having a go at me?'

"I feel for the fans but change in football happens quite a lot. Sometimes people don't like change but we have to deal with it and jump on board it. Let's really move it forward now because you can't win football matches without fans.

"I said it to Gary (Elphick, his coach) during the first half on Monday, I said, 'The fans are class.'

"I know it wasn't like it's going to be on Saturday (with a much smaller crowd) but I was like, 'Wow, these fans are proper loud when they get going!' What happened in the end didn't bother me."

Adding to Lindsey's problems is a spate on injuries going into the 3pm kick-off, which with no Premier League programme will be shown live on Sky Sports.

"Jack Hunt pulled his hamstring in training, so he's going to be probably around four weeks at best," said Lindsey. "Frank Maguire's got a plantar fasciitis tear, so probably a similar sort of timeframe. (Hiram) Boateng is probably longer-term.

"Josh Stones, maybe sadly it might be too soon for him as well.

"(Mark) Kitching's back training fully, Jeff King's back training fully, Craig Hewitt, he's modified training, he's still got a little bit of a problem with his shoulder so we're hopeful that he joins in fully next week."

Without wanting to reveal his XI, Lindsey said it will probably have "four or five" Football League debutants and only one starter – expected to be Ollie Banks – with more than 100 appearances in the competition.

Lindsey has also not had a full pre-season, although the only upside of the League Cup defeat was no competitive game last weekend when round one took place.

"Thursday and Friday of last week looked different to what it would have done if we'd have prepped for Watford (their League Cup opponents had they won)," said Lindsey.

"Saturday against Man United (under-21s) was more of a training-ground exercise.

"Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday were kind of similar to what it would have been. But for two days we could put more into them.

"I always work out of possession on one day and in possession on another and we make it really clear.

"We do meetings with the players before we train to explain what we're going to be working on on a said day and then we go out and work on exactly what we've showed them in the meeting and coming into a game, everything's crystal (clear).

"There's so much more that I want to add to what we're doing, but you kind of don't want to go overboard because you don't want to fill their minds with so many different things and all of a sudden there's confusion in the camp.”