FORMER York City manager John Ward extended his astonishing Bootham Crescent hoodoo over his old club to five victories.

Since he left York almost five years ago Ward has been a Bristol-shaped thorn in the side of the Minstermen.

First as manager of Bristol Rovers he notched three League wins for the Pirates at the Crescent. Now he has achieved the same feat twice as manager of Bristol City.

It was only during a brief period between the two Bristol posts that he ever sampled defeat on returning to the club where he first started his managerial career. That was as assistant to Adrian Heath at Burnley, about which he quipped: "I don't really count that."

He added that he believed another victory was on course when York's Gary Bull missed a sitter shortly into the second-half. "We were lucky in that we got away with some poor finishing from York," he said.

"When that effort did not go in I said then we'll go and win 1-0."

His happy demeanour at a victory, which ended the Robins' recent ragged run of just one win in six previous League games, contrasted sharply with his Bootham Crescent successor, Alan Little.

For the second match running he found it hard to accept that his charges had been poorly rewarded for some of their best play of recent months.

But Little declared : "I am determined that's the way we are going to continue to play football.

"We have provided great entertainment and I don't think the team can do much more apart from starting to put the ball into the back of the net."

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