The Youth team came into the first game of the New Year on the back of a three week break from matches over the Christmas period. Their first opponents of 2012 were Doncaster Rovers, and it was an away match to kick off the year. With a strong wind blowing down the pitch, York opted to kick with the wind in the first half. It was a very steady start from both sides, with neither team able to create any good chances. The ball was mostly in the air due to the windy, conditions, but it was York that started to take control of the game. Despite having Doncaster on the back foot for large parts of the first half, York found it hard to create a clear cut chance, the best of which fell to Tom Allan, but his volley was deflected off target. Despite not playing much in the York half of the pitch, Doncaster had a couple of efforts on target but these were comfortably dealt with by Ben White in the York goal.

In the second half, the roles were somewhat reversed with Doncaster now having more of the play with the strong wind behind them. York were now finding it hard to get out of their own half and were being put under a lot of pressure. Despite Donny now having a lot of the play, it wasn’t until the last 20 minutes that either side started to create goal scoring opportunities. Ben White undoubtedly made the save of the game, when he denied the Doncaster striker from a point blank header with a great save. Rob Moncur then had a chance to break the deadlock when sent clear of the Doncaster defence. However this time it was the Rovers keeper who made a very smart save down to his right. There was just time for both sides to have one last chance, when the Rovers striker lobbed the ball over the bar when put clean through, and finally with the last kick of the game, Tom Platt had a shot flash just wide of the right hand post.

It was another hard fought game between two evenly matched teams, and a draw was probably a fair result on the day.