Carlisle United couldn’t have had much worse a start to a tough run of fixtures in the National League.
They crashed 5-0 at York City, the first of eight successive matches against former Football League sides.
It’s fair to say that nobody of a Carlisle persuasion saw this one coming after a relatively trouble-free start to life out of the EFL.
York had gone into the game on the back of a first defeat of the season, beaten in stoppage time at home by lowly Solihull Moors.
They certainly made up for that setback by scoring three times in the first-half to leave the Cumbrians shellshocked at the break.
Carlisle’s four-match unbeaten run had little chance of being extended after that sort of start.
The home side showed they were in the mood when they made a flying start, opening the scoring on four minutes through Malachi Fagan-Walcott.
Mark Kitching headed against a post as York continued to force the pace and they doubled their lead with a penalty in the 39th minute.
Ollie Pearce was brought down by goalkeeper Gabriel Breeze and he made no mistake, going on to head his second a minute before the interval.
Barrow-born Alex Newby made it 4-0 four minutes into the second-half and substitute Josh Stones added the fifth five minutes before the end.
Carlisle stayed third in the table but most of the sides immediately below have two games in hand.
