Footballer killed fellow player with one punch

A Teesside footballer who killed another non-League player in a “cowardly” one-punch attack after a “nonsensical argument” at a railway station has been jailed.

- BY KATIE DICKINSON AND JOHN ROGAN

Mckenzie Dicicco, 22, hit married father-of-one James Hitchcock from behind while he was eating at Burger King at York station after a day out with friends. Mr Hitchcock, 32, who was a goalkeeper for Barton Town FC, in North Lincolnshire, suffered a fatal head injury and died in hospital three days later.

On Wednesday, Dicicco, who has played at Thornaby, Northallerton and Pickering football clubs, was jailed for six years and eight months after pleading guilty to manslaughter. Leeds Crown Court heard the two men did not know each other until their paths crossed at York station on December 15 last year.

Mr Hitchcock, who had a six-month-old son, had travelled from his home in Cottingham in East Yorkshire for a day out with a group of friends, while Dicicco had come from Middlesbrough with his girlfriend and two friends. The court heard Dicicco became drunk during the day, and was thrown out of a bar in York Museum Gardens.