In November 2002, the then City chairman, John Batchelor, took part in a question and answer session hosted by The Yorkshire Evening Press.

2.Currently on the board of YCFC are two people remaining from before your takeover; Colin Webb and Barry Swallow, and until recently Douglas Craig, who apparently departed of his own choice a few weeks ago. These people also remain as directors (and major shareholders) of Bootham Crescent Holdings (BCH). As directors of York City, I would hope that they have a duty to act in the very best interests of the club. However, as directors of BCH, whose main business objective is to liquidise its assets and distribute the proceeds among shareholders as soon as possible, they are clearly NOT putting the best interests of the club first. Isn't this a clear conflict of interests, and does it not worry you at all?

I think if people check any picture of the racing cars that they will find Persimmon adequately represented on there. The sponsorship agreement on the race team was a four year agreement.

I do not view it as a conflict of interest because the issues are separate now, at one point it might have been considered a conflict but what happens to this stadium and where the football club go are connected currently because we are at this ground but ultimately they are separate issues

If we have the opportunity to buy the ground, which we won’t get if it doesn’t have planning permission because that is where its value is, then there is a possibility or a strong level of probability that the club can reach an accommodation with the developers and BCH.

At the moment the ground is worth, I don’t know, pick a figure, four or five hundred thousand because if hasn’t got planning permission. Once it becomes a piece of real estate with planning permission, its value is probably three or four million. If we can put sufficient money together to get a deposit and get a commercial mortgage we can own the stadium, so that is how that would work.

Any planning application for Bootham Crescent would rely on the club having an alternative venue to go to so that unless we have an alternative venue to go to, planning applications won’t proceed.

The reason that we can’t introduce people to buy the ground at this stage, who would subsequently be involved in assisting to build a new stadium later is the complication of the way the deal was done originally.

While in theory it sounds OK to someone to buy it now and it’ll be worth more later, which would reduce the investment, actually getting someone to commit to that, logical though it is, is slightly harder to get someone to part with the level of money that you need to buy this place, on that basis.

The deal between Persimmon and BCH is not something I have any control over or direct knowledge of.

Persimmon didn’t sponsor the club to the tune of a million pounds. The sponsorship money has been invested in the club, the club eats money at a rate of knots. Unless you are actually involved in football you probably don’t realize how short a distance a few hundred thousand pounds will go.

The council, despite our occasional spats, are not anti the new stadium. If I have any problem with them at all it is probably more with planning law than with the council.

No it is not my intention to place a life ban on Douglas Craig and I think it is time we need to stop worrying about the past and think about the present and future.

There is no point being involved in this unless you want to go all the way to the top.

I’m not going to simplify it by saying ‘supporters’, but supporters are critical because they are the only form of income that the club realistically has. There are probably individuals outside of the club who are involved in other commercial ventures that are going to be key to our success.

I probably didn’t understand the exceptionally fickle nature of the sport to the degree that perhaps I needed to, but I am fully aware of it now. I’ve watched games away from Bootham Crescent at other games and even clubs that are right at the top of the table, if they don’t deliver they get an incredibly huge barracking in a very, very short space of time.

There is very little tolerance or long term thinking in the game at all levels. I think that people have to accept that for anything to happen at a football club it has to be done over a period of time and cannot be done overnight as much as we would all love it to. So they have to have patience with the players, with the management, and with every aspect of the team and the club.

We are starting from a very low base here and to get it somewhere reasonable we have to get the club stabilized and then it’s got to be moved on and that won’t happen overnight. It won’t happen unless the supporters get behind it, which to date they have done a good job with.

I was very disappointed for two reasons after the game on Saturday at Bournemouth. Firstly the result didn't go our way and secondly only Lee Nogan (briefly) of the players came across to thank all the City fans for their support.

Long term ambitions are to see the club in a new stadium and as far up the league as possible. I do have plans to strengthen the squad but they will be unusual plans. I can’t expand on that at the moment

I think we have had some lousy decisions from officials but more often than not it has been the linesman and not the referee.

We don’t always rely on the long ball game, but really that’s a playing issue and I can only judge our quality of play by our results which are up and down a bit at the moment, but in comparison with last year, substantially improved.

YORKCITY SC is the way to correctly write the name.

Douglas does not drive a club sponsored car, you must have mistaken someone else for him.

Keep up the good work.

In terms of a better team in general I think we have that. I think whatever level of statistics you look at we have a better team than it was last year. Because we have a better team than last year I think we will achieve promotion. As far as the new ground is concerned, watch this space.

The club is in financial difficulty, every club is in financial difficulty. The reason for that is not only have we lost the television income, but what that has done is that it has completely decimated the market for selling a player. For example, players that were probably considered to be worth half a million pounds last year are lucky to achieve 5% of that this year. The Russell Howarth transfer is a perfect example. If there is one thing that has surprised me and hindsight is a wonderful thing, it is a lack of money out there in the transfer market to assist when the club is going through difficult times. That is the same throughout the league and until the Football League grasps it and the PFA grasp it and we get a fundamental change in the way football is run and that has to happen sooner rather than later. Until that happens you are going to have clubs in trouble.

There are plenty of first division clubs that have no money. Premier League clubs can’t buy because the window is shut and none of the other clubs in the league have finished last season with sufficient reserves to be able to buy players. Not only that but they have lost a significant income stream with the ITV deal. If you take that much money out of the system and it means clubs are going to have problems because traditionally they have relied on TV income and selling players to be able to pay some frankly ludicrous levels of pay to players. The ultimate result is that when you have a business where the expenditure massively exceeds its income, unless you can find other sources of income, you are going to have a problem.

We can’t significantly reduce the levels of expenditure because we are bound by the players contracts.

If all the things that we are looking at come to fruition, I think we will significantly be able to reduce our expenditure and simultaneously increase our income to the point where we are a club that actually makes a profit. The difficulty is getting from here until the end of the season, those are the problem areas that I am addressing as we speak, which is why I am away so much.

You've made lots of bold claims in your short time at City, here are a few:

You're going to buy ITV Digital – We did look at. If they had had a willingness to sell it rather than walk away from the problem we could have found a buyer

You're going to set up a new league – is still possible and requires the football league to let us know whether they are going to sleep walk into Armageddon or not.

We're going to be the most unusual club in Britain – Well I think we can lay claim to being fairly unusual.

We're going to sell knickers – and yes we still are.

The programme will be a magazine available in newsagents - in the fullness of time it will be. Unfortunately events have overtaken us, which has stopped one or two things really in terms of the amount of time I’ve got available.

BC is going to be full each week – That’s one that I am prepared to give you. I think the only way we are going to fill this ground is if we knock two sides of it down! A flippant remark but not necessarily untrue. We absolutely, absolutely have to get more people in because the club will not sustain the costs that it has unless we do.

You're going to buy BC – That is still possible

We're going to get promoted – Well that is still possible.

The Trust will have 2 board members – Yes they will, if you speak to the Board of the Trust they’ll be able to give you some timing on that.

There is going to be a fans forum – Yes there will be.

We are going to have a great new ground with hotel, casino, shops, bars etc – I’ve been at a meeting on that very subject this morning.

You are going to run the planning application for the new ground in tandem with Persimmon's application on BC – We are doing, it’s just that because the council have asked us to do various studies on various sites before we can submit it, it’s just taking slightly longer.

We're going to attract huge sponsorship – Well we do. In one way shape or form we have already increased the clubs income from sponsorship by about 60%. There are other deals currently under negotiation but don’t forget I’ve only been here 7 months. People won’t see the exposure here, they’ll only see it on the racing cars. There is no point a multi-national company putting up a board in York’s football ground. There is nothing else we can put on the football shirts

We're going to be huge in USA - hence Soccer Club – Yes we will be in fact we have had a discussion in the last week about the possibility of playing a game or a number of games over there. There is a tournament which is available to us next year.

We're going to have a shop in the town centre – Yes we will.

We're going to have a bar in the town centre – Yes we will.

The last two are held up by the availability of the site and by the clubs current financial position.

I think you can look at most of these and say they are happening or they will happen in the fullness of time.

We have to have something to aim at and they have to know what kind of feel that we are going to have for the club. The problem is that you say something and people expect it tomorrow which is fine because that is natural. There are things that I want to do and it’s going to take a while to deliver.

The club is still here after all, which it wouldn't necessarily have been if some of the changes of the last seven or eight months hadn't been made.

Were Terry Dolan to win the lottery this weekend and decide to retire into the lap of luxury, who would you want to take over the managerial reigns?"

That’s almost a hypothetical question as the odds on winning the lottery are 14 million to one. I’ll address it once he has won the lottery.

You have previously mentioned opening a Club Shop and Sports Bar in the city centre, please can you confirm the current situation regarding this.

The new ground yes we are progressing on, we are doing the site evaluation, see the previous question. You’ll see a lot more on that over the course of the next couple of weeks. The city centre bar and pub is unlikely before Christmas. We have had some merchandise in shops throughout the city, whether we get our own retail unit will depend on whether we can find a site and sufficient funds to make it happen.

Can you please clarify the exact nature of the relationship between YCSC, BCH and Persimmon Homes?

The relationship is that YCSC is a separate entity and occupies the ground rent free from BCH, who own the major asset, which is the ground. I’ve no idea what the relationship is between BCH and Persimmon Homes because that is the subject of their own confidentiality agreement.

Persimmon is nothing to do with the Football Club – there was a sponsorship deal at the start of the year which has been largely invested in the club.

Trust members will be admitted to the Board imminently.

Soccer in America: If we pick the places we play at, there is money to be made. We need to look at the relationship between York and New York and look how we can expand that, which is something that I don’t think York as a City does much of, but secondly soccer is only big in certain parts of the States, particularly where there is a big Hispanic community, that’s what we need to work on.

We do plan to have an auction of some of the items when the time is right, which is not yet!

If the sponsor is on board, why don't they want my thanks for allowing me to have a cheap season ticket? It is strange behaviour and that worries me.

The club has a cash flow problem, so it helps. The sponsors will be announced in line with their own marketing strategies rather than be driven by the club. They will announce what their involvement is within football and motor sport when they are ready.

You need to look at this in light of what I have said about making it work in America but the other thing is that people may not like the name Soccer Club but sometimes its just good to be different. We need to set ourselves apart in as many different ways as we can, so that when we are speaking to sponsors they can see that we think differently to other clubs and we certainly do that and that is one of the reasons behind the name change.

You can call the club whatever you like. The fact that we promote it as Soccer Club is just to be different.

This season is the first season he has had the opportunity to put the team out that he wants, or he wants within the budget that we have. A great start to the season and we are still not far away in terms of points from being back in the action.

We had a 0-0 draw at Hartlepool the other night and I don’t think there are many clubs that can go to Hartlepool and come away with a point. Given that we have had a good start, he has won manager of the month once and the club is not far away from being very much in contention, I think he is doing an OK job.

I still believe that we can achieve promotion.

Do City have any plans to further reduce the price of tickets for young supporters accompanied by parents?

I'm taking two of my boys to Bournemouth tomorrow - here's hoping for 3 points. (A 4-0 win would be great because we'd then go above them in the table!).

We constantly review the ticket pricing, but at the moment we are concentrating on trying to get as many people into the ground as possible, to justify playing the games.

It is our intention to ensure the future of football at BC one way or the other for next season.

I haven’t been to the States yet because I just haven’t had time.

I wasn’t at Bournemouth but with regard to Terry, see the previous answer.(which was posted yesterday, Nov 12)

4. How much longer does JB think his honeymoon will last....you can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time but you cant fool all of the people all of the time. If JB's wallet was as big as his ego then we just might have a chance.

Sadly, I don’t think you can rely on people coming into football clubs and not expect them to try and run them as a business. The core element of running a company as business is that it’s income is greater than it’s expenditure and that is what I’m working on at the moment. I think the days of people coming in, I mean I have put significant money into the club, but there has to come a point when you say to yourself, I’m never, ever, ever going to see this back. Until we can make a position here, where it is actually making a return on its investment I don’t think you will find people doing that. Whoever is here, it has to work as a business.

I do, but not necessarily just for football.

When the chairman knows what is going on, I’ll tell you.

I don’t mind, I’ll take anyone on anytime. I must be the most accessible chairman in the league and you can come here and ask me anything, anytime.

Yes I do, but I quite enjoyed it!

Of course I’ll meet him one to one, I’ll meet anybody one to one.

As soon as we know more about the stadium, everybody else will believe me. I’d love to put that out in the open. It gives me no great pleasure to sit here and say ‘you’ll have to wait and see’.

Why is it not possible to 'come clean' on the New Ground situation,Is it really going to happen , or is it a pipe dream struggling to come to life.Is there any funding for this at all?

The ground situation will become clearer in the next few weeks as the planning application moves on. The previous directors are still involved because I’m not the type of personality that would chuck people off the board that have given long service to the club.

I know there is animosity between some fans and some previous members of the board but they work extremely hard for the club and to dispel anybodys beliefs, certainly aren’t doing it for the money because the directors are non-exec directors and are not getting paid and neither is the chairman.

I don’t believe there is a rift between me and the Supporters Trust as will become apparent in the next few days they are going to be heavily involved in the club.

There are no shares changing hands. I’m trying my best, that is all I can say.

If this is relating to Chris Smith he is injured. I don’t think that the recent results really represent what we are capable of doing, I think we can do better. Okoli and Rogerio are having some difficulties with where they are getting to with training, but we will keep working with them.

I think it is a little early to kiss your money goodbye.