GEORGE Grumley lived every York City fans dream when making his debut for the club he has supported his entire life on Tuesday night.

After manager Adam Hinshelwood had confirmed that he intended to include some of his academy talents in the York squad for their visit to Oldham Athletic on Tuesday night, Grumley was given the call-up to the first-team after impressing in the under-18’s.

Grumley had captained the under-18’s on numerous occasions prior to this, and his form had caught the eye of Hinshelwood, who confirmed that the defender has been training with the first-team prior to his involvement in the squad.

Then on Monday, as York prepared for a huge clash with fellow promotion hopefuls Oldham, Hinshelwood told Grumley that he would be named in the matchday squad.

Grumley had already planned on attending the match with his father after buying tickets in the away end, but will have had no complaints on watching the match from the bench.

He was introduced for his City debut from the bench in the 94th minute for Tyrese Sinclair, and didn’t look out of place as the Minstermen claimed a memorable victory over the Pennines.

At the time of writing too, Grumley is currently playing for the under-19's and has scored a brace less than 24 hours from making his professional debut.

“He’s trained with us a fair few times this season and honestly it makes Saturday’s performance,” Hinshelwood beamed.

“When we told him yesterday that he was going to come with us and be on the bench today, he said that he was coming to the game anyways!

“His face absolutely lit up like it was Christmas Day, and that’s what it’s all about.

“It’s such a nice feeling to see, he was going to come and be up there with all of the supporters.

George Grumley replaced Tyrese Sinclair in stoppage-time to a standing ovation from supporters. (Image: Tom Poole) “He’s a York lad, he was going to come, got his dad a ticket and was going to come to the game.

“Ty was saying that his hammy’s were tightening up a little bit, so it was no-brainer to just chuck him on in the middle of the park.

“I’m delighted that he managed to get on, he made a crunching tackle in the middle of the park there!

“It’s great, it’s what I said I wanted to do to get young players coming up and through and they’ve got to own it.

“Every time he has stepped in and trained with us, he’s been excellent.

“We’ve got high hopes for George, we’ve got to build on this now and not let this be the pinnacle of his season.

“He’s hopefully had a taste of a massive game in front of massive fans, and hopefully that’s going to push him on to train and work even harder to experience it more.”

Grumley was one decision that Hinshelwood had to make in his squad for the visit to Oldham, but another was whether to start Josh Stones.

Stones had joined York prior to their FA Trophy defeat to Gainsborough Trinity over two weeks ago, and made his City debut in their 2-1 loss against Sutton United on Saturday.

Hinshelwood opted to drop Stones to the bench for the win at Oldham, and explained that the decision was made to relieve some of the pressure from the 21-year-old, playing against his former team.

“Josh has come in and spoke about the intensity of our training in these two weeks,” Hinshelwood detailed.

“He’s played a lot of minutes on Saturday and was starting to look a little bit leggy, but he’s also a young lad and we wanted to try and take the pressure away from him.

“He’s going to be a big player for us, there’s no doubt about that, and he showed it today.

“He’s a different kind of player and is probably a younger version of Lenny [Lenell John-Lewis] with the way he plays.

“He’s got some quality in there as well, so it wasn’t an easy decision.

“With this team with Ty and Ash [Nathaniel-George] on the wings, a natural left-back in Cam John, the balance just looks right with this team and they’ve done so well, so many times this season.

“It was quite easy to revert back to that.”