York City manager Billy McEwan was today urging his side to stay positive after last night's sickening 1-0 defeat at Halifax despite dominating the game from start to finish.

A 62nd-minute Craig Midgeley penalty swung the game in the hosts favour at the Shay in front of a Sky-viewing audience.

But the rest of the game was all about York and McEwan said he will be focussing on the positives with just three days until the next match at home to Cambridge United on Friday night.

"We are sick as parrots that we have not taken anything out of the game. Halifax manager Chris Wilder said 'I don't know how we lost it'. I said we lost it ourselves. It's a sickener. It's a disappointing way to lose a game.

"But I've said to them 'get your heads up' - we've got another game Friday, and there were a lot of positives here."

The narrow defeat also offered a benchmark for McEwan's new regime.

"That shows how far the club has come in a short space of time," he said.

"We came here last year, 2-0 we lost, and we were never in the game except for when (Ben) Jackson went round the 'keeper and should have scored. When they got the second one we were never going to get back in the game.

"This year we've come here, we've made a fight of it, been involved in a scrap and played some really good football at times.

"We've dominated the game and not won but that's football isn't it.

"They say there were 1,000 people from York and that's just amazing. The lads appreciate that and I am sure the fans will be scratching their heads as much as we are as to how we didn't win."

McEwan was also quick to admit that there were also negatives that need to be fixed sooner rather than later with ten fouls, including four in danger areas giving Halifax their chances.

He said: "I'm disappointed because we created a lot of great situations but we didn't punish them.

"We said to them at half-time if we are going to get anything here they will not beat us, we will beat ourselves.

"It was suicide - we can't keep shooting ourselves in the foot all the time.

"You're not going to win games if you keep giving silly free-kicks away. We said that in the team talk.

"I'm sick for them because the game was there for them to win.

"They've just got to be a little bit more streetwise and that comes through making mistakes - as long as they learn from them.

"We just keep shooting ourselves in the foot by giving away silly free-kicks and silly penalties away and at this level the officials are not fantastic and you see some bizarre decisions.

"Maybe after the claim for the penalty in the first half, maybe the referee saw that and thought well I didn't give them that, I'll give them this one."

Updated: 11:19 Tuesday, August 30, 2005