York City go back to the top of the National League on goal difference with a 1-0 win at Boston after Rochdale lose 4-2 to Morecambe.
Stuart Maynard’s side and promotion rivals Rochdale swap places again, Ben Brookes getting the online goal of York’s win on 48 minutes.
Meanwhile at Spotland, it was three points for Morecambe, up to 22nd and six points from safety, thanks to a brace from Lewis Payne (32′, 66′) with Jack Nolan (72′) and Ben Tollitt (90+8′) also getting on the scoresheet.
Rochdale had gone ahead through Aidan Barlow on the 19th minute, and Ian Henderson got one back to make it 2-3 just over 10 minutes of the second half remaining.
With four games left to play, the Minstermen have a 23 goal advantage goal difference, with the two sides face each other on the last day of the season.
York boss Stuart Maynard said, per York Press: “League tables don’t matter,” Maynard stated.
“We can’t worry about where we are and what we’ve achieved, because we’ve achieved nothing at the minute.
“We need to keep making sure that our standards are so high, the only thing that matters is Rochdale.
“When that game is finished, if we’re top of the league, that’s all that matters, nothing else matters between now and then.
“There will be twists and turns before then, we’ve got Monday, we’ve got to go again Monday and our group has given absolutely everything out there [today].
“They’ve emptied the tank, that’s what we ask for, every time you go out onto that football pitch, empty the tank.
“We need to recover, it’s tough to go in these Bank Holiday weekends, but I believe we’ve got the mentality to be on it again on Monday.”
On his team’s performance: “It was really pleasing, I thought that we were excellent from minute one.
“I thought that they came out of the blocks to be fair to them and they put it on us, we weathered a little storm for about eight minutes but other than that we had control in the way that we wanted to control the game.
“Getting up the pitch in our structure so that they couldn’t counter, because they’re a dangerous team on the counter and they’ve hurt a lot of teams.
“We knew what we were up against today, and I thought that the lads were absolutely outstanding.”
See more of what he had to say in the video below…
Rochdale’s Jim McNulty said: “Disappointed to concede four goals at home, which I think ultimately is the reason that we don’t win a game today.
“Only our second loss, I think, at the Crown Oil this season, which is an amazing record in itself.
“But, yeah, analysing the game, solely this game, we’re very disappointed with how we defended and conceded four goals today because two goals is enough to win a game for sure.
“If we were defending how we’ve defended as a whole this season, in this particular moment, we don’t feel we’re defending as well as we have all season.
“We’ll look into the reasons for that, and yeah, ultimately that’s why we lost the game today.”
Interviewer: “Aidan gave us a good start early on and then Morecambe were absolutely brutal, but they just go with the first shot on target, I they had five in total, we pair that with our chances that we missed and they go on to win the game.”
Jim: “I don’t know how many we had, but yeah, in this recent pocket of games, we have seemed to have been stung by very minimal amounts of shots and our goal have turned into goals.
“To be fair to Morecambe, we knew that they were very, very capable of that. They’ve scored goals all season, they’ve conceded loads but they’ve scored goals all season long, all different types of goals because they’ve got a lot of talented kind of EFL marksmen, particularly from outside the box with theNolan and Tollitt and Edwards and Payne gets a couple today. They’ve goals, high quality individual moments all season long and we were very conscious of that.
“But think their first goal from their first shot is the 30th minute-ish, is against the run of play. But, yeah, I mean, we could bemoan our luck for not many shots going in against us, but that’s not our style. I’d rather address how are we defending the moments collectively. Is that something that is in line with the desire we’ve had to defend and the execution we’ve had to defend all season long. It’s not, it’s obviously not. And yeah, that’s the reason we lost today.”
Interviewer: “We’re at that stage of the season where teams such as Morecambe are absolutely fighting for the lives at the bottom of the table. They’ve got nothing to lose and they come in and obviously get the victory, which they fought for and got in the end.”
Watch the rest of the interview below…
Here’s how fans reacted as York go top on goal difference with a 1-0 win at Boston after Rochdale lose 4-2 to Morecambe…
@Jack_YCFC_Esh: Still got games in hand it’s alright
@TheStig1997825: Complain about “play until york score” against morecambe and you get 7 minutes out of fucking nowhere and it’s morecambe who score. Absolute CINEMA WE ARE BACK
@SeanCoffey96: At least you had your games in hand lads 👍🏻
@CharxRafc: Am I the only person that saw this happening? The celebrations and injury time goal last week papered over an awful performance at Sutton. We are struggling at the moment compared to previous performances and glimpses of mentality and in game substitutions from last season creeping up under the pressure. BUT the meltdown won’t help. We need to back the lads. Still so many twists and turns still yet to happen in my opinion. This isn’t over and before a ball was kicked at the start of the season us fans would’ve killed to be in this position. Have your sulk and then get behind them again on Monday at Hartlepool. #RAFC
@TommyRAFC: This has been coming for weeks this we’ve been awful for weeks now
@joembeebam: Any crowd over 4k and we absolutely cack our pants. That’s an embarrassing performance and result. Don’t deserve to win naff like that.
@MessyRAFC: Fucking dreadful. Have been for weeks. Anyone defending them at the moment has lost the plot. Won’t win a game in the playoffs, nevermind the title. We deserve this loss after the utter shite we’ve been producing recently. Shite. #RAFC
@thatseriphosi: We’ve gone from having the best defence in the league to whatever circus this is. They had four chances and scored all four. Something needs to change.
@DanTakesOnFooty: That feels massive today! What a result for Morecambe but it genuinely feels like Dale have blown the title race wide open again. I’m done with predicting who’s gonna win it I just want to enjoy these last few weeks for what they are as a neutral but today has shown ANYTHING can happen going forward. Advantage York. #RAFC #NationalLeague
@euniesufc: What the fuck is this league? That’s both title contenders who have now lost to relegation fodder over the last few weeks. York now have poll position via goal difference. What a final day this is going to be 🔥
@Ben_m_1234: Hendo showing them all how it’s done when he came on. For a team who are meant to collectively be aiming for the same thing there was far to many dead rubber performances. That JK Gordon looks like he won a raffle to play. Eerie silence of acceptance at the end of that one…
— Jason Higgins (@jahiggins208) April 3, 2026
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