IT'S not often you can say to York City's enterprising chairman, we've heard all this before. But now we can and in a most literal sense.

John Batchelor has revealed that he has been recording the crowds at Bootham Crescent and playing the chants back to heat up the atmosphere on match days. This canned crowd brings to mind the ready-made laughter supplied to sit-coms, but if it gets results, we can only say that City have it in the can.

Updated: 09:24 Friday, September 20, 2002