Skipper Pilkington thrilled to banish York hoodoo

TOWN skipper George Pilkington was a relieved man after Luton finally ended their York City hoodoo in emphatic fashion on Tuesday night, writes Mike Simmonds.

Hatters hadn’t beaten their Blue Square Premier rivals in four previous attempts, but that was all to change as Town made a mockery of their recent record.

The captain said: “They are one of the teams that we’ve struggled against in the past, so it’s a good result.

“You look back to the play-offs last year, they beat us, and that’s still on the mind.

“We know we hadn’t beaten them and it gave us the added incentive to try and get the monkey off our back and we managed that.”

Town were helped by the red card shown to City goalkeeper Michael Ingham, but Pilkington was confident his side were already in the ascendancy.

He said: “Obviously the sending off had a big effect on the game, however I think at that point we were on top.

“We were looking the more likely and it’s not always easy against 10 men, but at times we made it look that way.

“The referee had the easiest decision he ever had to make.

“Claude (Gnakpa) was clean through and would have scored, and then to score straight from the free-kick was another nail in the coffin.

“To go two, three and then four-up before half time, it was a thoroughly deserved result.”

Hatters also kept a fifth successive league clean sheet, meaning they haven’t conceded in over eight hours of football, but Pilkington didn’t want to make a big deal about it

He said: “I don’t want to talk about it too much because we don’t want to jinx it.

“It’s very pleasing. Clean sheets are a great basis to go on and win games and that’s what we’re looking to do again on Saturday.”