Y Front Fanzine
City’s Best Ever Side – Defence - Coming Soon
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Home Crowds – How High? - Coming Soon
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Hinsh’s Xmas List - Christmas Presents - Coming Soon
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City On Camera - Coming Soon
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Department Of Youth
Whilst most eyes will be on City’s first team, others will be keeping a close eye on the progress of City’s academy side.
In terms of performance, overall 2023/4 was possibly less successful for our academy when compared to the previous season success. In both the FA Youth Cup and National League Youth Alliance Cup, City failed by one game to go as far as a season earlier. The team exited the FA Youth Cup in the final qualifying round (at South Shields) and once again, City reached the Alliance League Cup Final, but couldn't retain the trophy, losing to a late Maidstone winner. In the league, City's 4th place finish was a drop of 2 places.
Last season, City’s youth side was generally strong defensively but struggled to score freely. That is maybe reflected by the 2 academy players won earned their first professional contracts.
Bill Marshall, playing in a range of defensive positions, was a strong leader whilst Leon Gibson-Booth impressed at left centre back.
However, bar a few games for Ryan Whitley, the perennial problem remains, none of the former academy players saw any first team action last season.
Since 2004 (and our first relegation from The Football League), just 7 home grown youngsters have graduated to play 30 or more first team games for City. Step forward Tom Platt, Andy McWilliams, Adam Boyes, Lev Yalcin, Bryan Stewart, Graeme Law and Ryan Whitley. Unfortunately, to many eyes, not the calibre of player required for a successful City side.
The likes of Ben Godfrey, David Stockdale, Ryan Edmondson and Jamie Hopcutt didn’t reach 30 City appearances before moving on.
Thinking of a song reference as a title for this piece, I was drawn towards Wasted Youth, but resisted the temptation.
With Marshall, Gibson-Booth and fellow academy graduate Alex Hernandez, all are still eligible for academy league and cup games (but not FA Youth Cup).
Last season, Hernandez had a 3 goals in 6 games spell at Winterton Rangers, 3 tiers below City. As “best in class”, academy football might now be beneath them all and they need to be playing in men’s football. If they’re not pressing for a City first team place, they should go out on loan and develop at a reasonable level.
That’s the challenge for Adzm Hinshelwood. How to promote youth into City’s first team?
Nowadays, it seems that nearly every manager is under pressure every game, they have little chance to look to the long (sometimes even middle) term. The next result is all important.
I’m sure Adam Hinshelwood is under the same pressure, but he’s regularly said that he values youth football. Witness the number of young players he brought through at Worthing, the number of occasions he has spent time coaching and watching City's academy and younger ager group sides, he even gave up a couple of days with his family down south in June to arrange a big get together with City's academy staff outlining his vision for our academy.
That is forward thinking, a lot more than many City managers have done. He deserves success.
With the academy players on 2 year scholarship contracts, every year there is a regular turnover involving a new intake of about 10 16 years, largely drawn from City’s Under 16 side. In recent years, those younger City age group sides have been so successful that a good number of them get poached at 16 (or younger). That in itself is an issue. With EPPP, City don’t benefit when a player is poached, instead, we are reliant on players developing and attracting later transfer (or compensation) payments.
Given all teams have that annual turnover in academy players, the league table can look quite different from one season to the next. That said, City generally challenge towards the top with a settled academy structure under the guidance of Dan Wilson and Tim Ryan.
For them, success can be measured in terms of titles and cups, but I’m sure they’d both like to see City’s first team populated with home grown talent over the next few years. That would be real success.
U Right – Jack - Coming Soon
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City’s Best Ever Side – Keepers - Coming Soon
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Somebody’s Hero – Bobby Saxton - Coming Soon
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Thomas Tuchel - Coming Soon
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End Of Term Report - Coming Soon
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U Right (Deranged of Huntington) - Coming Soon
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The Setanta Shield Years
I was asked to write about City’s Setanta Shield years. Nowadays, being based down south, I haven’t seen a single game in that competition and equally, given City’s relative lack of success in the competition, I have little to write about.
Surprisingly, the competition dates back to 1979 and the first season of the National Conference. In those days, known as the Bob Lord Challenge Trophy, in memory of the Football League’s long serving president, it was taken seriously, although Scarborough won it in 1984.
Played as a knockout competition, City played 5 games over 3 seasons. Those games saw 4 go into extra time (I’ll leave you to decide whether the teams were highly motivated to win a trophy or couldn’t be bothered) and 2 of those games went to penalties. Those resulted in one win and one defeat, the others one win and 2 defeats. Richard Brodie got 3 of City’s 8 goals in the competition making him our top scorer.
We never threatened to win it.
By the time City first entered the competition in 2005 it was in its death throes and known as the Gladwish Sales Cup. City’s last 2 forays, a couple of years later saw it branded as the Setanta Shield and the collapse of Setanta TV saw the competition’s final demise.
City's last game in the competition, a 3-1 defeat at Barrow in 2009 has caused statisticians some consternation. The scorer of City’s goal being disputed, was it direct from Simon Russell’s corner, or did Daniel Parslow get a final touch. Most say it is Parslow’s goal.
Our 2 home games saw a total of 1,371 fans see City’s 2 games whilst 1,503 witnessed our 3 away games.
Attendances were near constant, consistently low. Excluding covid times, the home win on penalties over Mansfield in September 2008 attracted a record low City home crowd of 608 supporters. The defeat at Accrington (January 2006) saw just 392 spectators, a number that was lowered 5 years later when a mere 275 “saw” City win an FA Trophy replay at Solihull Moors on a foggy December evening in 2011.
Prior to losing our Football League status, City played in the Associate Members Cup. For City, our top attendance was 5,837 for our debut in the competition, an infamous local derby defeat to Hull in 1984. Although the early years didn’t warrant a Wembley final, City never progressed too far in the competition and once a Wembley final brought “glamour” to the competition, it was a realistic opportunity for a first Wembley appearance for clubs like City. We never took the bait.
The idea of an associate members' cup wasn’t new. Such a competition was launched in the 1933/4 season as the Third Division North Cup (a similar competition was held in the south) as a straight knock out cup. In the first season, City won 2 games before losing in the semi final. The competition ran for 5 seasons and was resurrected in the 1945/6 season as football returned after the war.
Even earlier, as the number of clubs declined the Midland League, in 1924/5, the 15 clubs played a 28 game league before splitting into 2 random halves and having another 14 game supplementary mini league.
In terms of competitions, that “don’t matter”, City have been regulars in the North Riding Senior Cup. The competition pre-dates City by over 40 years. In our time, we’ve won it 11 times. But that doesn’t matter as Scarborough have won it 19 times and Middlesbrough 55 times. Hot on our heels are Whitby (9 wins) and Stockton (8).
City’s last win was in 2010 and 2 years later we reached the final and lost 2-0 to Middlesbrough at Bootham Crescent in front 304 fans. As I said, it really doesn’t matter.
City’s first ever trophy success was the East Riding Senior Cup which they won by beating Beverley White Star in our Fulfordgate days.
Come 1955 and in recognition of our FA Cup exploits, City were invited by The East Riding FA to play Hull City at Boothferry Park in the East Riding Invitation Cup. 8,958 saw a goalless draw, both clubs held the trophy for 6 months. City were invited to play Hull for the cup a year later, winning 7-4 on aggregate, 8,881 saw City beat Hull 5-0 at home in the second leg, largely thanks to an Arthur Bottom hat trick.
I wonder, as holders, do City still have the Invitation Cup trophy today?
Now we have a new fangled competition to look forward. The big boys having allowed their Under 21 / academy sides to participate in the EFL Cup alongside Division 1 and Division 2 sides now want to “spread the money” into the National League and propose a new competition involving the top 16 National League sides.
I’m not sure whether they want to “spread the money” or having generally failed to beat Division 1 or 2 sides they are now hoping for easier opposition.
Given the EFL Cup has been unsponsored in recent years, I doubt if there will be much money to spread and given some of the Under 21 / academy loanees we’ve had in recent years, it might be a few easy wins for City and our ilk, although given City’s finishing place last season, we’ll have to wait for another season before we compete in it.
I can’t wait.
One Sub Zeroes
Before February 2024, City had had 21 players whose City careers amounted to just one substitute appearance.
Keith Hague was the first. Having starred for Goole against City in a pre-season game, City snapped him up and he made just one sub appearance for City in March 1966 before being released at the end of that season.
Next up was Ray Pennick, an amateur winger who joined City after impressing in a friendly against City. His 30 minutes of City fame was against Halifax when referee Roy Harper collapsed and died on the pitch in May 1969.
In February 1972, City signed Aston Villa’s Neil Rioch on loan, the midfielder played once for our reserve side and made one first team substitute appearance before being returning to Villa 10 days into his month’s loan when Villa would not release him permanently.
The list goes on with many long forgotten players, in all probability a youth team graduate and invariably players who have quickly disappeared from the footballing landscape.
The 1980s and 1990s saw Dave King, Riccardo Gabbiadini (who followed his brother to Sunderland for a small fee), Mark Bradshaw and Neil Grayson join the list. Striker Grayson was playing for Rowntrees at the time. He didn’t do enough to upgrade his part time City deal at the end of the 1990/1 season but went onto make nearly 500 appearances for the likes of Chesterfield, Gateshead, Boston, Northampton, Hereford, Cheltenham and Forest Green Rovers over the next 13 seasons. Whilst never prolific, he had a reasonable strike rate and was voted cult hero at both Northampton and Cheltenham in a 442 magazine poll.
Between 2001 and 2013, Ben Rhodes, Phil Bell, Josh Radcliffe, George Purcell, Reece Kelly and Cameron Murray joined the list. 4 youth products, a Whitley Bay loanee and Purcell, signed from Braintree and sold to Dover. Although details are sketchy, fees were involved in both Purcell’s arrival and departure, the larger being paid on his arrival.
The madness of 2016-8 saw Tyler Walton, Alex Bruton, Ryan Edmondson and Marcus Williams added to the list. Youth striker Edmondson later joined Leeds, it is believed a fee was involved, some reports state it was as high as £100,000, but it was never been publicly stated. Consigned to Australia, he seems to have finally found his level.
In more recent years, amid covid disruption, official records show Charlie Jebson-King, Harry Bunn, Rob Guilfoyle and Jonny Haase have become later members of City’s not so super sub list.
Of that illustrious group, not a single player scored for City, 10 were youth products and we received fees for just 3 of them on their departure.
Only Neil Grayson can be said to have had a decent or long post City career.
In March 2024, Leone Gravata joined the list. His didn’t set the world alight on his debut but he remains to play another day.
Footnote: Jonny Haase a 90th minute substitute against Southport on October 9, 2021, has probably had the shortest ever City playing career. Another youngster, Josh Radcliffe was a 90th minute substitute against Kidderminster (FA Trophy) on February 11, 2009, he went onto play extra time, and uniquely became City's only ever one appearance scoring substitute with his successful kick in the 13-12 penalty shoot out win.
PS Don’t get me started on the 100+ others players who have made just one City starting appearance.
More, More, More
So the big boys have got their way (nothing new there) and FA Cup replays are now consigned to the dustbin, that is from Round 1 onwards.
So whilst the likes of Liverpool don’t want us going to Anfield to cause a nuisance on a Wednesday night, they‘re happy to send us to Needham Market for a Tuesday night replay.
In memory of the loss of replays, I recall some memorable City replays.
Whitby 1926 One for the statisticians (and nerds). Many records show the original game as home game for City that was played on a Sunday. In fact, Whitby was drawn at home but forfeited home advantage and the game was played a day earlier than stated. The game was a goalless draw and City “brought” Whitby back to Fulfordgate for a replay winning 2-1.
Huddersfield 1938 Having drawn an FA Cup quarter tie at Bootham Crescent in front of an all time ground record crowd of 28,123, the teams settled the tie in a replay 4 days later at Leeds Road in front of 58,066. Reports of the time were full of cars being abandoned miles from the ground with the occupants completing their journey on foot.
Newcastle 1955 City’s biggest ever FA Cup tie was the 1955 semi final against the mighty Newcastle. By then, the favoured mode of transport was train with 19 specials being laid on from York. 65,000 fans witnessed the 1-1 draw at Hillsborough and many were again in the 58,239 crowd for the replay 4 days later. In the games before substitutes were allowed, City played most of the second half with 10 fit players. Influential centre half Alan Stewart being deployed on the right wing as nuisance value shortly after the break after suffering badly cut head. City lost 2-0. Back in York, match commentary was relayed across the city and many workplaces reported mass absenteeism that day.
Morecambe 1966 and 1985 We’ve faced each other 3 times in the FA Cup ties, City are unbeaten in those 6 games (3 wins and 3 draws). Drawn at home in all 3 ties, twice Morecambe held City to a Bootham Crescent draw. In December 1966, the teams also drew the replay at Morecambe. The teams picked Manchester City’s Maine Road as a neutral venue for a second replay. For the 1985 tie, after a resolute Morecambe held out for a 0-0 draw, they selected Maine Road for a replay, believing their own ground wasn‘t capable of hosting City. 2 goals in the first 8 minutes from Ricky Sbragia and Keith Walwyn gave City a comfortable 2-0 win. Incidentally, in 1967, after needing 2 replays to beat Morecambe, City went to 2 replays against Middlesbrough, going down in front of 21,437 at Newcastle’s St James Park.
Middlesbrough 1 Hull 0 February 1968 saw Bootham Crescent host a Round 3 2nd replay. 16,524 paid ground record receipts of £4,423 in a game arranged at one days' notice when the intended venue, Hillsborough, was deemed ice bound.
Cardiff 1970 After 2 1-1 draws against Cardiff, then high flyers in the second tier, City selected St Andrew’s, Birmingham as the equidistant neutral venue for a second replay. With both replays going to extra time, it was City’s longest ever FA Cup tie at the time. Barry Swallow’ brace saw City progress with a 3-1 win as Barry Jackson, in one of his last ever City games had John Toshack in his pocket. In the 1970s, 2 more City cup ties went to 2 replays, each with extra time. Both resulted in defeats (Northampton, (1970, League Cup) and Rotherham (1976, FA Cup). In those days (mad nights), you could catch the mail train home and arrive back at York Station about 3a.m.
Blyth 1978 Cup giant killers Blyth had reached Round 5 in the previous season. They attracted over 42,000 to Newcastle’s St James Park for a replay against Wrexham, a late defeat denied them a home quarter final against Arsenal. After years in the doldrums, the Geordies had a cup run to give them hope (even if it was green and white stripes and not black and white). The following season saw them draw 1-1 in Round 1 at Bootham Crescent. All the talk was of another cup run. City had other ideas, even if it took extra time on a snowy night at Croft Park for City to run out 5-3 winners. For City, David Pugh scored at home and Barry Wellings, Andy Clements, Gary Ford, Kevin Randall and Gordon Staniforth were on target in the replay. Some might say Andy Clements pile driver from outside the box was the pick of our goals, others might call it a powder puff effect which took a wicked deflection (and they’d be right).
Liverpool 1985 and 1986 2 quite different replays. In 1985, City held Liverpool to a 1-1 draw. Arsenal penalty hero Keith Houchen was returning from injury so the tenacious Sean Haslegrave added bite to midfield at Bootham Crescent. Fit again Houchen returned for the replay. Perhaps his silky skills weren’t quite what was needed as a rampant Liverpool ran out 7-0 winners. It was one 7-0 where one side was absolute class and the other side were ok, but not disgraced. Contrast that to a year later, City more than matched Liverpool for long periods of the game, the home crowd grew restless, even more so after Keith Walwyn’s goal was controversially disallowed. It was only as City began to tire that Liverpool got on top in extra time. One regret? Neither replay was televised, so if you weren’t there, you don’t know how big the injustice was or how close City came to victory.
Caernarfon Town 1986 10 months after the second Liverpool replay, our next FA Cup replay was against Caernarfon, then a leading Northern Premier League side, but still 2 divisions beneath City. After a 0-0 draw in Wales, we crashed to a 2-1 home defeat, the Denis Smith era was plummeting towards its final days. Can any time have lost to such diverse teams as Liverpool and Caernarfon in the FA Cup in one calendar year?
Solihull Moors 2011 Not FA Cup, but FA Trophy, a comprehensive 3-0 win at Damson Park with an all time low attendance for a City game. How much they saw is debatable given the foggy conditions, but they can say, “I was there” as City’s march to a first FA Trophy triumph got underway.
Curzon Ashton 2016 Maybe unique in City’s history, a replay with a new manager in charge. City drew 1-1 on Saturday and that evening after nearly a year of McNamara era, he was replaced by Gary Mills. With just one training session before Monday’s replay, he asked coach Steve Torpey which of his 30 players he could trust, “None of them" was his honest assessment. City went down 2-1.
Mystery Investor
With speculation raging over who is City’s new 25% investor, I asked bookies BetBeMugged for their odds.
7/4 Favourite - Ricky Gervais He was coy about his involvement and part ownership of Ellers Farm Distillery whose brand Dutch Barn Orchard Vodka is City's back of shirt sponsor. Was that the first baby step towards revealing he is the mystery investor.
5/2 – Hank Wiltenberger With few options to break into US football club ownership ahead of the 2026 World Cup, the New York based multi billionaire Wiltenberger has sounded out fellow North American investors. Apparently sold on the tradition of York and the trophy cabinet (including 12 North Riding (the largest county in England) Senior Cups) whilst City’s Academy Cup successes appeal to his sense of American dream and opportunity for everyone. PS Don’t tell him that the Academy Cup is limited to non league sides.
11/4 - Jason McGill The cynic might say he still owns a share in City, but as a lifelong fan, I’m sure he’s got City’s best interests at heart. Given his near 20 years of football club ownership, he might appeal to the Uggla as someone who knows how to run a football club.
6/1 – Sophie McGill You can take the girl out of the city, but you can’t take the City out of the girl. It raises the tantalising prospect of another City director being the parent of a City player in years to come as her teenage sons are believed to be talented footballers. Already seen at the ground this season, some reports said she appeared unhappy when leaving having been informed that Thierry Latty-Fairweather had turned down Tonbridge Angels bid for him.
7/1 – Chris Simpson’s Dad Well known local businessman who owns a string of over 80 racehorses and has fingers in a lot of pies. Rumours that his Hors d'Oeuvre pie contains horses’ hooves and his Cottage Pie is based on the former Grand National winner are unsubstantiated. Being from York he could be a runner and rider although with all those pies inside him he could be badly handicapped. His odds have halved since it was revealed that Michael Mills has his 50p (remember folks, always bet responsibly) on this candidate but doesn’t trust Simpson’s pies.
8/1 - Matt Uggla’s Daughter Although still at primary school, a part ownership, possibly funded by her Dad (or her own pocket money) is a considered to be a lively outsider. Talk inside the club suggests she was responsible for City’s pink third choice kit colour.
10/1 – Gareth Southgate Locally based and part ownership might allow him a way back into management if City’s season goes awry. His likeable personality would fit well in the Hinsh era.
14/1 Paul Sackey: With his undoubted commercial acumen, many feel he is the mystery buyer. Others suggest he would fall foul of insider trading rules and regulations if he was the investor.
16/1 – Chelsea FC With their stockpile of players, part ownership of City would add an English club to their worldwide portfolio of clubs and allow some of their unwanted squad members the opportunity of regular football when the governing authorities only allow any club to loan 6 players to clubs outside their own country at any one time. Their price suddenly shortened in August when they consigned Ben Chilwell to their duds’ squad.
20/1 - Neal Ardley In his brief time as manager, Ardley was keen to get his finger into every pie, revamping the training ground, scrapping the scouting system and bringing in a large number of backroom staff. It is a natural progression for him to want to extend his influence into the boardroom. It is believed that substantial funds are available for him to invest following his most recent dismissal. Spotted watching City in the Directors Box at Sutton.
25/1 - Lance Uggla The feeling is that too many Ugglas might spoil the broth.
33/1 – Mark Labbett The Beast from ITV’s quiz show The Chase was spotted at the ground in July at the Sheffield United friendly. Dismissed at the time as being a United fan, he was spotted a few weeks later at another City game fuelling rumours that he is the mystery investor.
40/1 - Simon Jordan Plenty to say on football club ownership and would have appear to have a guarantee route to success, he has a lot to say on any matter. On second thoughts, I doubt he’ll do 25% and have to be subservient to others.
50/1 HRH Prince Andrew, The Duke Of York Seeking a way back into public life and looking to exploit his dukedom, his office feels he could open new doors to City and comes with undoubted family wealth. The feeling inside the club is that his recent misdemeanours might hinder the unity being built within City.
66/1 - Sheikh Al Aasy A dominant figure in his own circles, he always finds something extra but doesn’t like to stray too far from his plush and familiar Berkshire surroundings. A multiple winner.
80/1 Gabby McGill Another candidate with City links who’d look to play an active role both on and off the field.
100/1 - Jon Greening Seeking to get closer to Matt Uggla and potentially launch a reverse takeover of City. Such a move would see Scarborough and City swap places, something that Greening believes is the quickest, if not the only route, to get Scarborough promoted (and City relegated).
125/1 – Rick Witter / Shed 7 Looking to prove once and for all he is a York City fan through and through, his people suggested buying a stake in his local football cub after they were outbid by Ineos for a stake in Manchester United.
200/1 –Trigger A popular, smooth talking, a man of the people, a regular home and away supporter who knows City inside out. Odds have doubled since a crowd funding bid to raise the funds by his best friend has faltered.
5 Subs
Football used to be a simple game, played by 2 teams of 11, an injured player posted onto the wing for nuisance value.
One substitute was introduced in 1965, initially only for injury (not tactical) reasons, an extra substitute keeper was introduced in 1986 and 5 years later, the rules were changed again to allow 2 outfield substitutes. I recall at the time being impressed with Liverpool. Across the first 2 seasons of 2 outfield subs, they could call upon 5 top forwards, Rush, Fowler, Walters, Stewart and either Barnes or Rosenthal.
Equally, Manchester United’s 1999, whisper it quietly, treble winning side, could, and often did, perm any 2 from 4 for 2 striker berths, Cole, Yorke, Sheringham and Solskjær.
The common factor was the ability to bring on 2 fresh (and top class strikers) to have a go at a tiring defence.
Nowadays, rugby union frequently references replacements as “finishers”, an apt word for their role to finish off the opposition and the game.
In Euro 2024, we saw the impact of England’s substitutes, 3 different finishers played key roles in winning the 3 knockout games that saw England reach the final.
Now the National League has fallen in line with many other leagues by allowing 5 substitutes from a bench of 7. Last season, we saw some teams fail to fill their bench. Likewise, City struggled, take away an injured Dipo Akinyemi and City’s bench was very light on strong striker replacement options.
This season, add in City’s new attacking midfield and wingmen, then you start to feel that City have forward options to make a difference.
Hinsh has spoken about playing Akinyemi and Pearce together, pre-season tended to see them alternate. With our other forward options, we’re now able to replace our entire front 3 and lose little, if anything, in terms of quality.
Equally, 5 pairs of fresh legs should allow City to play full on Hinshball for 90 minutes.
Who will be City’s Ollie Watkins or Cole Palmer? The sub who makes the difference.
I’d also like to think that a 7 men bench will allow young players more opportunities. Last season, 17 year old Alex Hernandez proved a striking threat in men’s football on loan at Winterton Rangers. Adam Hinshelwood’s desire to promote youth should mean that he and young defenders Bill Marshall and Leon Gibson-Booth get some first team opportunities and the chance to prove themselves.
Hopefully, injuries permitting, with our squad, we should be able to field a full bench and have strong attacking options to finish off game for us.
Come on you reds.
Gareth Southgate
Initially appointed England manager in September 2016, Gareth Southgate had 102 games in charge before he resigned in July 2024 after England’s defeat in the final of Euro 2024. During that time, those games saw 61 wins (59.8% win percentage), 24 draws and 17 defeats.
That win percentage puts him ahead of any City manager. It is slightly better than the 58.4% win record of Steve Watson and ahead of next best who are John Askey (54.2%) and Martin Foyle (52.9%).
Like Southgate, you could say all the 3 of those City managers tended towards a more dour style of football.
What would City give for a manager with a similar win record who played good attacking football?
Meanwhile, excluding Tom Mitchell, who had nearly 13 years in charge of City straddling WW2, no City manager comes close to Southgate’s length of tenure.
Tom Lockie (1960-7) being City’s longest serving manager, closely followed by Tom Johnston and Alan Little, each of whom lasted just over 6 years.
Southgate’s win record is a major contribution in England going deep in the last 4 tournaments, but does that make him successful? I might be happy with 2 runner up positions and 2 more top 4 positions in the next 4 seasons for City.
Southgate has got his own style and sticks with it. Like it or not, it has brought England more success than any other manager in my lifetime. You can argue we now have world class players and deserve more success, but that has usually been the case ever since 1966, including Keegan, Shilton, Lineker, Robson, Shearer, Owen, Beckham, Gerrard, Terry, Ferdinard, Lampard and many more, all world class players who didn’t deliver for any number of managers.
For City, I’ll be quite pleased if Adam Hinshelwood is still in charge to celebrate 102 games in charge of City, even better if he is still here in 8 years, it will mean stability (and hopefully progression).
City’s England Internationals
At the last count, I could name 156 players with City connections (admittedly a few with tenuous links) who have who some kind of England representative honours, many being England “C” (non league) caps but taking in England Futsal (Alex Rodman and Ben Purkiss), Joe Neenan (England Catholic Schoolboys) and England Independent Schools (Gabby McGill).
Unfortunately, given City’s place in football’s pyramid, many of the more prestigious honours have been gained when the player was not with City.
Pride of place goes to Joe Hulme. Leaving City in 1924 for Blackburn, later when at Arsenal, he won 9 England caps as a right winger scoring 4 goals. In that great Arsenal side, he also won 3 Division 1 title medals and played in 2 FA Cup winning sides. A decent cricketer, he was a regular over most of the 11 seasons he played for Middlesex, mainly as a middle order batsmen (8,103 runs) but he also took 89 wickets as a handy medium fast bowler.
City’s next England international (again 9 caps) was centre half Alf Young. He is probably best remembered as being a member of the England side that won 6-3 in Berlin in 1938 when the team gave a nazi salute before kick off. He played just 5 games for City during the 1945/6 FA Cup. At 40 (and 34 days) he became City’s oldest outfield debutant. That will also make him City’s oldest ever outfield player. His last “competitive” City game was on January 26th 1946 (aged 40 and 83 days). Note, footballing records dictate that whilst that season’s FA Cup counts towards official stats, the league programme didn’t properly resume until the start of the 1946/7 season.
Fast forward to 1976 when Norwich’s Phil Boyer won his solitary England cap over 5 years after leaving City. At City, his strike partner was Ted MacDougall who went onto become a full Scotland international.
Fast forward again to Nick Pope and Ben Godfrey of a more recent vintage. Pope made the first of 10 England appearances 4 years after his City loan spell whilst Godfrey earned the first of 2 caps in 2021, 5 years after leaving City. Whilst during his loan spell, many City fans predicted a good career for Pope, I suspect fewer imagined that Godfrey would also become a full England international. Godfrey also earned Under 21 and Under 20 caps.
One City player absolutely no one ever thought would become a future England international was Mark Sertori. They were right, but only just. He made the England bench in 2007 although in his later career as a physio, a role he was to fulfil for 10 years.
Michael asked me to write a “one that got away“ piece, one name for that is Paul Robinson. A City schoolboy keeper, he wasn’t offered a City scholarship (Dean Kiely and the likes of Andy Warrington were ahead of him and Russell Howarth was 2 years behind him). He joined Leeds and in a long Premier League career, he went onto play for Spurs, Blackburn and Burnley, winning 41 England caps along the way.
No City player has appeared for England at a World Cup, but one keeper was once on standby. After playing for England in the May 2002 Under 20 Toulon Tournament, Russell Howarth and the whole of the squad was placed on standby for the 2002 World Cup held in Japan and South Korea.
Whilst records are sketchy, it is believed that only Roger Jones represented City and England’s Under 23s and similarly only Darren Williams went onto win England B honours at Sunderland.
Richard Cresswell is the only player to win an England Under 21 cap whilst with City. A number of other players represented City (at various levels) and gained England Under 21 / Under 20 caps when elsewhere. They include Jon Greening, Darren Williams, Curtis Woodhouse (a City schoolboy), Lee Morris (another City schoolboy), Marco Gabbiadini, Febian Brandy (a one week triallist), Clarke Carlisle, Chris Carruthers, Chris Fairclough, Scott Flinders, Ben Gibson, Asa Hall, Scott Loach Bobby Mimms, Bryn Morris, Richard Offiong, Richard Ord and Graham Potter.
Even more players have England caps at a lower age group level.
Honourable mentions to Brian Pollard, Cliff Calvert and Mike De Placido who were England youth (Under 18) internationals in the same season before making their City debuts in the early 1970s.
More honourable mentions go to Chris Hogg and Jack Pinder. They both captained England Schoolboys, albeit over 50 years apart.
In the pre WW2 days of Jack Pinder, York was a hotbed of schoolboy football. City fielded at least 7 former England Schoolboy internationals who were born before the start of the war, including brothers Tom and George Maskill.
At the other end of the age range, 1978 midfield loanee Graham Collier represented England at Over 60s Walking Football, being a member of England’s victorious team at first ever World Nations Cup of walking football held at St George's in August 2023. Earlier in 2024, Jon Challinor, aged 43, was selected for England’s Seniors for the 2024 Seniors World Cup held in Thailand.
What could be better than representing England? How about representing Great Britain?
Jon McCarthy, in 1991, won a bronze medal as part of the Great Britain football team at the XVI Summer Universiade (aka the "World Student Games" in Sheffield), Ben Purkiss (at the 2009 Student World Summer Games, he was a member of the British side that lost to Japan in the bronze medal match) and back at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics, Charlie Twissell was a member of the British side that lost in the quarter final. In his career, Twissell won 5 English amateur caps and a further 11 for Great Britain.
Honourable mentions to the handful of players who played for England at age group level before winning full caps elsewhere. They include Callum Harriott (Guyana), Anthony Straker (Grenada), Febian Brandy (St Kitts and Nevis), Moses Ashikodi (Antigua & Barbuda), Dean Kiely (Republic Of Ireland) and Peter Scott (Northern Ireland).
Finally, Steve McClaren, another City schoolboy, he never went onto play for City, but did manage England.
Wealdstone - Coming Soon
I must take issue with #43 and the away day paragraph on Wealdstone. Whilst I can agree that there is nothing much to say about it, Wealdstone have never ever played there.
Nowadays, they play in the leafy residential suburb of historic Ruislip, in the borough of Hillingdon, on the road out of London towards Heathrow Airport.
Formed in 1899, for many years they played at Lower Mead in central Harrow (albeit on the road leading to Wealdstone) before severe financial difficulties forced them to sell their ground to Tesco in 1991 and begin a nomadic existence which lasts to this day.
On the pitch, Wealdstone flipped between London’s non league scene, spending time in the Athenian, Isthmian and Southern Leagues before becoming founder members of the Alliance Gola League in 1979. In those days, they were the south’s leading non league side, regularly challenging Scarborough, peaking in the 1984/5 season when they did the non league double, 2 years before automatic promotion to the Football League was introduced.
After a financially disastrous ground share at Watford’s Vicarage Road, they moved in with Yeading (The Warren), Edgware Town (White Lion) and Northwood (Chestnut Avenue). Along the way, the disused Prince Edward Playing Field in Canons Park was identified. Construction of a new stadium started in 2003 but suddenly stalled a year later when the company who were co-financing the project went bankrupt. Eventually the project was formally abandoned and the site was sold to Barnet who completed the site and moved into The Hive in 2013.
In early 2008, Wealdstone bought the Ruislip Sports and Social club its associated lease of Ruislip Manor's Grosvenor Vale ground. So since the start of the 2008/9, that has been their home.
It has been secured on a series of short term (3 and 5 year) leases whilst the owner tries desperately to secure planning permission for the ground and associated grasslands. Lack of security of tenure has meant that and money spent on ground infrastructure is effectively money down the drain, although in their case, drainage was another pressing issue that was finally addressed this summer. It was Gateshead’s security of tenure which saw them barred from play off entry last season.
In late 2023, the club identified a site on Freezeland Way in Hillingdon (2 tube stops further down the line from their current home) for a new ground although there now seems to be silence on its progress.
Over recent years, a ground share with Barnet has been mooted. It remains to be seen if Barnet leave The Hive whether Wealdstone will re-energise plans for a move there.
Wealdstone’s history demonstrates the problem that many lesser London (and other) clubs face. Land locked grounds in populous areas have appeal to property developers.
Sounds familiar?
So, for the past 33 years, Wealdstone have been looking for a new home. We thought City’s 20 year stretch was a life sentence.
In that time, finances dictated dropping down the leagues to reduce travel costs before working their way back into the Conference.
Now they are a part time club, they will train 2 mornings and one evening a week this season. They just about hold their own, picking up young players from clubs across London clubs and will have a wide choice of the lower non league players.
Despite their current lowly level, the club has a bit of history behind them. They played at Wembley on several occasions, including the Middlesex County Cup Final and in 1966 beat Hendon the FA Amateur Cup Final in front of 45,000, a bigger crowd than City have ever attracted to the stadium. Indeed, it was only 10 years earlier that 100,000 would watch the FA Amateur Cup Final. In those days, shortly after the abolition of the maximum wage in 1961, amateur football was still a big thing, top class players earning more in a "day job" and playing football for pennies at weekends.
Wealdstone have the distinction of appearing in the first ever game to be televised in the UK, when the BBC showed part of their league match against Burton in October 1946. Shortly afterwards, they appeared in the BBC's first two live FA Cup games, qualifying round games against Edgware Town and Colchester in autumn 1949. City made their live debut on BBC as late as 2023.
Ruislip, nowadays home to Wealdstone FC, is the home and birth place to more well known people than Wealdstone, including broadcaster Sue Cook, actor Andy Serkis (his roles include playing Ian Dury in the biopic "Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll" and Fred Tomlinson, composer and founder of the Fred Tomlinson Singers who were closely association with Monty Python's Flying Circus and later he co-composed music for many of David Croft’s well known BBC TV sitcoms.
Mention of Andy Serkis reminds me that he filmed some of the Ian Dury biopic on Ruislip’s Lido, a popular haunt of locally born Ian Dury’s childhood. The Lido has also featured in several other films including, "Confessions from a Holiday Camp" (Robin Askwith), “The Young Ones” (Cliff Richard) and "A Night to Remember", when a large model of the Titanic was sunk on the lake. The slither of sand and lake providing an ideal location for beach and sea filming. More recently, Voodoo Radio filmed a promo for their cover of "C30 C60 C90" on the Lido and in the nearby "The Sounds Of The Suburbs" record shop.
Its leafy suburbs have also provided the back drop to various TV programmes and adverts, including Alvin Stardust who filmed a Green Cross Code advert on Ruislip High Street in 1976, sketches from The Two Ronnies, Dave Allen and the kiddies TV show Come Outside.
Back to football, on the pitch, there are few links between our 2 clubs. Manny Duku played for them briefly last season, whilst Colin Meldrum, City’s coach in our 1973/4 promotion season and again on City’s coaching staff in 1982 was Wealdstone’s manager for 6 months in 1987.
It seems that The Stones top City in many ways, I just hope they don’t extend their 100% record against City.
Boot Dreams
First shown in August 2023, I have just caught up with BBC3’s “Boot Dreams”. It was filmed over 4 weeks during the extremely hot August 2022. Across 6 one hour episodes it documented a training camp where young players were thrown together, effectively seeking a last chance to win a professional football contract.
Having not seen any of the Amazon fly on the wall documentaries filmed in top flight clubs, it was a bit of an eye opener on how a football club, especially a development squad, might work. This at a time when City’s own development squad was very much the focus.
A total of 21 players were involved, aged between 18 up to 27, all had been with professional clubs ranging Manchester United and Spurs down to Mansfield and Morecambe. They included Jake Flannigan who had briefly played in the top flight (Southampton) before succumbing to an ACL injury, Qasim Khan who’d beaten cancer, others who’d been spat out of the English academy network and those (several) who’d fallen out of love with the game and / or struggled through the covid years. Checking the players’ recent clubs, many had been playing at below Conference level immediately before joining the programme.
Maybe not representative of the average player, many had a back story to tell including being born in, or with a family heritage from Cameroons, Fiji, Tunisia, Hungary, Bermuda, Brazil, Congo and Portugal.
I got the feeling that a player’s back story was more important to the show than their footballing ability.
Under manager, Gifton Noel-Williams, the ex Watford striker, their journey in camp was tracked. Listening to Noel-Williams, his coaching team and the scouts at the games, it appeared good character and mental strength were equally as important as footballing skills. One noted, “you can coach skills but if you’re not confident, then the player won’t succeed”. Noel-Williams paid tribute to his immediate family for a good family upbringing and his cousin, 3 years older than him, a pro at Ipswich, for teaching him how to behave well in a footballing environment.
The series featured 6 friendly games against a mix of sides, including a Manchester paid for international academy, Chesterfield’s academy and young sides from Macclesfield, Curzon Ashton and the final game against Salford City (“technically the best side we’re played”, but in reality what looked like a young development squad).
It appeared that each game resulted in at least one player being offered a trial elsewhere. Matlock, Altrincham, Accrington and Bradford City were amongst the clubs that showed interest. It all made for good TV.
Along the way, the squad prankster became too much, upsetting other players, earning a stern warning, including how to behave when he went to Bradford for a trial game whilst another player regularly got called out for not towing the line. One player found it difficult living away from home and a young family for the first time. It was easy to see why in a big squad, players with a poor attitude or poor motivation might fall out with the management and their teammates.
Player and squad dynamics seemed likely to be the key to success. As the squad evolved, some players fell by the wayside, others thrived and grasped their opportunity. It was hard to keep 20 players onside.
At the time, “Boot Dreams” had a 20 man squad, City had a squad nearly twice as big.
It was easy to see why a player who says “I’m a game player, not a training ground player” might not get on with his manager. Whilst the player who “really likes football, a manager’s dream, you don’t know he’s there (in a good way)” might eventually get his chance. Training was portrayed as a chore, the reward was game time.
In camp, striker Alex Samizadeh left early and had 2 months with Altrincham before injuries struck and he was released, a couple dropped out of their own accord and post camp whilst defender Jordan Fankwe had spells (no first team games) with Watford and Salford before dropping down to Basford. I believe that the rest returned to lower league oblivion.
In camp, striker Alex Samizadeh left early and had 2 months with Altrincham before injuries struck and he was released, a couple dropped out of their own accord and post camp whilst defender Jordan Fankwe had spells (no first team games) with Watford and Salford before dropping down to Basford. I believe that the rest returned to lower league oblivion.
In camp, striker Alex Samizadeh left early and had 2 months with Altrincham before injuries struck and he was released, a couple dropped out of their own accord and post camp whilst defender Jordan Fankwe had spells (no first team games) with Watford and Salford before dropping down to Basford. I believe that the rest returned to lower league oblivion.
Whilst a TV reality show and a professional football club are 2 very different entities, it was evident that the experiment wouldn’t work. Having been thrown together, it was soon apparent that some players wouldn’t fit and the difficulties of integrating 20+ new players into a side were quickly highlighted.
Listening to Matt Uggla speak this summer, it appears that City have learned some valuable recruitment lessons, possibly placing more focus on a player’s character than in previous times. That is to be applauded.
However, the lack of regular game time for fringe players may remain an issue with City and if “Boot Dreams” taught me one thing it is that players live for game time.
Loan Rangers
2023/4 showed the difficulty a club has in playing the loan market.
Not many of City’s 9 incoming loanees can be said to have been successful. Largely, they fell into 2 groups. Of the young academy products, many failed to make the step up to first team football.
Olly Green and Luke Daley looked decent before succumbing to mystery illnesses and returning to their parent clubs during City’s winter of discontent. Before them, Aiden Marsh and Jack Stott struggled. Later, in the same category, Charlie Allen and Sam Fishburn made little impact.
Of the more experience professionals, it can be argued that all 3 added something to the team, albeit at the time of writing, only Alex Hunt has returned to the club. However, all 3 were regular first team players.
In total, over the previous 4 seasons (2019-2023), I reckon City have had about 15 loanees, only 3 (Forde, Ellis and Ross) could be said to have made a significant impact with City.
Coming in, it can be difficult for a new player, especially a young one, often experiencing first team pressures for the first time, to quickly get up to speed with a new manager, new team and new system.
Looking around the league (especially at our opposition), at times it seems that most teams have loanees playing a significant part in their sides. Not so much City. Beyond the regular managerial churn and large squad, I can offer no reasons why that is.
On the other hand, City loaned out 17 players last season, at the time of writing, only 4 (Dyson, Hernandez, Kouhyar and Taylor) remain with City, it could be said that for many of the others, the loan move was the start of their City exit path.
Does that demonstrate that the loan market doesn’t work?
The loan system was initiated to allow clubs to fill specific gaps in their side. Today, with limited reserve team football, big clubs use it more to give younger players a first chance of “mens’ football”.
Likewise, for City, it can be used to give younger players a first chance of senior football. Last season, age 17, Alex Hernandez took his chance at Winterton Rangers whilst George Harrison impressed in 2 loan spells at Bridlington Town both as an academy player and again as a first season pro before succumbing to serious injury (and being released by City this summer). Being picky, having impressed at Brid in February 2023, come October 2023, if Harrison was developing, a higher league might have been more appropriate. I might suggest whilst such spells are good first step, the next step for an academy graduate is first team football, either with City or on loan at a club much closer to City’s pyramid level.
For the older City players who went out on loan, only Maz Kouhyar and Ryan Whitley returned to regular first team football.
Once again, the reserve or development team has its appeal. The players would stay with City, have daily contact with the club, train with the club and mix with the good characters within the club, learning the club’s ways.
It is often argued that reserve team football doesn’t work. The arguments include the level of opposition and largely meaningless nature of results, but it does mean the players are under City’s constant supervision. It does mean that those playing reserve team football have a weekly chance to impress the manager and to prove themselves ready for City’s first team. Of all City’s recent managers, it does seem that Adam Hinshelwood is the one most likely to support and promote City’s young talent.
I wonder how much contact Sam Sanders had with City whilst on loan at Truro and how much contact the likes of Cedric Main and Finlay Barnes had with City whilst out on loan at clubs with a much closer proximity to York, but both their clubs had their own playing and training schedules which will have severely restricted their time with City whilst out on loan.
Out of sight, out of mind?
All those 3 left on multi month loan deals with no recall clause. I can understand that, City using the loans as either a development opportunity or dumping ground for the unwanted whilst the other club wanted surety of tenure, seeing their arrivals as integral team members. Unfortunately for City, amid our injury crisis, there were calls for instant recalls and first team action for all 3 players.
Neal Ardley and Matt Uggla have spoken about the challenges of running up a reserve side, but to me, a reserve side might offer more development opportunities than relying on the loan market to develop young players. That is not to say that the loan market doesn’t work, only that it should be used more sparingly.
Ray Wynn
To many Ray Wynn was the face of York City supporters, I doubt if any other City supporter has been a more recognisable face over the past 60 or so years.
He was a true City supporter travelling, home and away, rarely, if ever missing a game for many years. In the dark days of the early 80s, when the club would cancel the Travel Club coach at short notice, he managed to make alternate arrangements.
A stalwart of the Supporters Club, he and the likes of David Quinn and Andy Heppell provided the younger “hands on” elements of the of the Supporters Club.
For many years Ray was the secretary. I always paid my membership fee and when I moved down to London, within weeks, I had a nice and cheery letter from Ray wishing me well and to remind me that my new season subs were due. Caring and efficient.
As well as diligently fulfilling his duties for City’s Supporters Club, he liaised with the National Federation, making him a well known and well respected figure with rival supporters across the country.
As well as the Supporters Club, he undertook many unpaid duties for York City in the days when the Supporters Club was embraced by the club.
Many fans will have reasons to remember Ray with fondness and for all the good deeds he did. He organised away travel when that duty belonged to the Supporters Club, keeping a fatherly eye on the young supporter making their first away trips and bringing back a pile of match programmes for collector and programme shop stock.
When we started the Roof Appeal, he was active committee member, although at times he could be a frustrating presence. When the Supporters Club pledged all profits from their annual Grand National draw to the appeal, he was insistent that tickets remained at something like 5p. His argument being that many supporters couldn’t afford to pay more. Frustrating yes, but a very valid point of view. That was Ray, the man of the people, protective of his members.
The 1980s had polarised the supporter base, the official Supporters Club had a rival organisation, the York Nomad Society.
One former Nomad noted, “he got a bit of banter off the nomads back in the 80s”. I’d go a bit further and say it was mild abuse. However, good natured Ray always took it in his stride in good spirit. I suspect both Ray and leading Nomads had an unspoken respect for each other. Both parties were looking out for their own members and the greater good of the club. To the Nomads, he was Ray, the rampaging animal of York, nothing could be further from the truth.
In a story that I’ve told before, Frank Ormston thought he was the only City supporter watching City’s hastily re-arranged game at Millwall’s old Den ground in 1985. Fearing for his own safety, he saw one familiar face, Ray was there as well, the only 2 City supporters in the ground that day.
Beyond City his other sporting love was refereeing, he was a stalwart in the York Sunday years for many years, a stickler for the laws of the game. He sent off a fair few City fans in his time and on one occasion got himself locked up. During a period heightened security, he did his usual and drove straight past the checkpoint on his moped into Strensall Barracks and got arrested by the military police. In the days when there was no fourth official, Ray got to run the line at Bootham Crescent in an emergency.
That moped seemed to be his constant companion, however, outside football, his true love was his beloved wife, Vicky. Sadly she pre-deceased him. Ray never really got over his loss.
I’ve written many pieces, but this is the first time I recall writing an obituary, although I like to think of it more as an appreciation.
Ray, you will be missed by many. RIP.
Development Squad
Whilst City’s development squad players have been cast in all directions to get game time, next season, will City have a proper development team and in which league will they play?
The flagship reserve / development league is the Premier League Under 21 / 23 setup. It has recently changed from to an Under 21 format and features 37 of England’s top sides split by EPPP category 1 and 2 designations. For 2023/4, 26 EPPP category 1 clubs compete in Premier League 2 and 11 EPPP2 clubs compete in Premier League 2 Division Two, both operate at a nationwide level with only Reading, in the top flight, being from outside England's top 2 leagues. Currently up to 5 over age players are allowed per team as the big clubs struggle to decide the best format. It could be said that players should be ready by the age of 21 whilst the 5 over age players allows both the occasional late developer and squad or other players returning from injury competitive game time.
Beneath this, at "Tier 3", sits the Professional Development League, a 21 club competition split into 2 regional sections and features a range of clubs from Burnley and Watford down to Crewe and Colchester. If my maths and understanding is correct, that makes 58 clubs.
There are various Under 23 / 21 / development leagues in existence, pyramid fashion, beneath this. Here at “Tier 4”, many lower league clubs compete in various leagues that largely go under radar. One such league that operated during the 2022/3 season was The Central League, albeit a shadow of its former glories, a 7 team competition which included Huddersfield, Wrexham and 5 lower Football League clubs from Lancashire. For the 2023/4 season, The Central League appears to have increased to a 12 club (now all from the Football League) competition, spreading its tentacles to add Derby, Lincoln, Notts County, Mansfield and Barrow with west and east sections. This will also be around the level where the likes of Doncaster and Harrogate also compete.
I imagine “Tier 5” is the “National Football Youth League“ set up. It has a 10 team northern division consisting of Chesterfield, Mansfield, Macclesfield, Scarborough, South Shields, Steven Gerrard’s Academy (Paul Mullin is possibly the most notable graduate in its history) and 2 sides from each of Tadcaster Albion and i2i. Its 9 team southern equivalent includes Cambridge, Wealdstone and 7 teams from below National League.
Uniquely, Mansfield compete in both the revamped Central League and the National Youth Football set up.
Further down, say “Tier 6” teams like Kidderminster run Under 23 sides, they complete in a West Midlands league, competing against many clubs that many have never heard of.
Without a recognised EPPP academy, I see City fitting in at "Tier 5" (but struggling to be accepted any higher up the pyramid). So for our development, it could be tasty competitive derbies against i2i, Tadcaster Reserves and Scarborough Reserves. Presumably all winnable games but the quality of opposition might be questionable.
Whilst for City, "Tier 5" competition might provide a modicum of competitive football at reserve team level, it hardly seems the level that is needed to step into the first team, so for some time to come, loans at National League North / South level might still prove to be the best route into our first team.
Certainly, over the years, the lack of quality of a reserve league has been cited by City as one of the reasons for scrapping a reserve side.
Goal A Game
In YFF #33, the playing record of a certain Mr Jones was noted. One City appearance, one City goal. Reputed to be a player of some repute, he was spotted drinking in a pub before the game, with City a player short, he was signed on the spot and thrust into City’s side. Readers might be interested to know that he is one of 11 former City players to achieve or beat the goal a game mark.
He is one of 5 City players to score one goal on his only City appearance, whilst a certain Tyson scored twice on his only game for City, a 4-2 in over Grimsby Town Reserves in September 1927.
3 other players scored 2 goals in City appearances. The most recent being John Price, a veteran who was an occasional deputy for Alf Patrick during the 1948/9 season. However, pride of place goes to Charlie Flood (19 goals / 19 games) and R Holland (17 goals / 16 appearances).
I’ve steered clear of naming too many players, as 8 played for City during our early non league years, 2 more in the 1940s and only one in recent years.
The most recent player? Jack Redshaw who scored in our FA Trophy defeat at Ashton United in December 2020, his only “true” City appearances, I’m not counting his league appearances as the league was declared void due to covid.
What would we give for Dipo Akinyemi to join that club by the end of the season by scoring a goal a game?
Whatever, let’s hope that City never have to resort to pulling players out of the pub before a game ever again, if so, that man of repute, Michael Miles might be in line for his City debut.
Replay
If Jurgen Klopp wants the recent Spurs game replayed due to the controversial disallowed goal, I'm happy to support him, if he supports City for the same from our 1986 FA Cup tie when even the home team players thought it was a goal.
Looking back in time, how different might City’s recent history be if we could go back in tie and “replay” the incident.
Replay 1991. Michael Sinclair sold his shares to Douglas Craig who assumed chairmanship and started City on the long and rocky road to today. Previously, we’d never been cash rich, but somehow had survived and had had a good team about once a decade, usually good enough to bring us to attention of the national football headlines. Since our mid 90s swansong, its usually been in times of difficulty or ridicule that we’ve made national headlines.
I could pick out many managerial appointments that we should replay. 2015 and Jackie McNamara’s appointment being the lowpoint. A moneyball approach that didn’t work. Over the years, we missed the chance to appoint the likes of the Martin O'Neill (never got an interview when he applied), Billy McEwan (an unsuccessful applicant 12 years before he eventually got it), Malcolm Crosby, Ricky Sbragia, Graham Potter, Steve Evans (possibly the most rejected applicant) and Neil Warnock.
Whisper it quietly, might Barry Swallow have made a good manager or coach. Chris Jones likened him to Malcolm Allison, Jones, citing their confidence, slightly aggressive and arrogant personalities. It would have been interesting to see if Barry Swallow could have translated his success as a caretaker manager into something more long lasting.
And another thing I’d like to go to and replay out of history is the John Batchelor aberration of a shirt.
Breaking News: Klopp wants Liverpool’s 2014 home defeat to Chelsea to be replayed due to Steven Gerrard’s slip, caused by a “significant human error” which directly lead to the opening goal and cost Liverpool the Premier League title. He said, “It was an obvious mistake and I think there would have been solutions for it afterwards”.
Issue 37 - A Landmark
This is one piece that I thought I’d never have to write. Y Front is 37 issues old, very well done to all concerned.
We put together 36 issues of new frontiers over nearly 30 years. Launched in 1992, it went into hibernation just as Jon McCarthy was sold (“where’s the money gone” wasn’t really a question at the time) and weeks later we all know what happened at Old Trafford, possibly the start of the great Douglas Craig unravelling.
Back in the day, it was a logistical challenge but most people were helpful and supportive. One toe rag still stands out from the early day, wearing a Vice President’s tie, he claimed he deserved a free copy as he’d driven them from the printers in Sheffield to the ground on the previous day. They’d actually come from Cardiff 2 weeks earlier. He walked off in a huff, refusing to pay his 50p (“all profits to the Youth Development Fund”).
Later, a few sporadic issues found their way out, partly due to the ongoing issues at City and partly inspired by Y Front.
Being based down south, logistics became increasingly difficult (family life, planning trips to York, winter weather, finding suitable selling dates and being reliant on LNER included). Back in the day, Sheila Smith took delivery straight from the printers and all profits went to club funds. The club was supportive, even Douglas Craig handed over his 50p for every issue (whether for a good read or to check for potential slander is unknown). Invariably Ricky Sbragia thrust a £1 coin into my hand (“use the change for the next issue”, he’d say, next issue, he gave me another £1 coin). The later revival years saw eager eyed stewards checking for any transgressions onto club premises whilst ensuring salesmen didn’t block the car park entrance.
I’ve got to admire Michael and his Y Front team for their ongoing work. Invariably written to a high standard, it constantly brings City’s past (both good and not so good) to the fore.
Given post the post covid world (spiralling production costs (commercial printers gave way to “self production” (I was going to say “home”, but it wasn’t always home printers / copiers that took the pounding)), the increasingly cashless society and the immediacy of social media) and the frenetic pace of production, it cannot be easy to maintain the high standards. Not to mention the need to keep the content fresh and relevant without repeating old ground. It is still a joy to pick up a new issue of Y Front.
As Y Front motors on, I await the day in about 3 years when it matches or beats Terrace Talk’s 58 issues. I’ll be even happier if we have a league position to equal those halcyon Division 3 / 4 days.
Against Modern Football - “Long” Forgotten Rules
When I was a boy, you could always tell the goalie, he wore a green jersey, unless he was playing for England when it was yellow. Up in Scotland, it was reversed, yellow for club keepers and green for Scotland’s national keeper. Their shorts and socks exactly matched the rest of the team.
Come the 70s, anything went, one tradition down. Two if you count the requirement for keepers to wear long sleeved shirts. Three, the regular sight of keepers wearing caps to keep the sun out of their eyes largely disappeared. Four if you add goalie gloves. Graeme Crawford recalled how he chewed gum and smeared it on his hands during most of his career and it wasn’t until late in his career that gloves (once the preserve of wet days only) and specific keeper coaching arrived thanks to Charlie Wright.
Indeed, pre season pictures and news of that era seemed to centre around long distance runs and laps of the Knavesmire, news of tight hamstrings and groin strains was sadly lacking.
One tradition that changed in the 80s was the pitch sprinkler. Up until then, artificial pitch watering was banned between November and March. When you recall the state of some of pitches back then, it is easy to see why. Now, pitches are watered before the game and again at half time, although I’m increasingly seeing one half of the pitch watered more at half time, is that meant to favour the home side?
The rules of the game seem to change every season. Given the rate of change, it is easy to see why referee fails to enforce many rules. What irks me is the 6 second rule for keepers to release the ball. Frequently it takes 3 times as long, allowing teams to re-set and slow the game down.
About the only recent incident of a keeper being punished is FC Halifax Under 19 keeper who was booked for this offence early last season against City. He got a second yellow for a foul a few minutes later. Imagine the outcry if that had been Alisson or Ederson.
On the subject of yellow cards, Declan Rice picked one up for England in the spring for delaying a free kick. One opponent was within 3 yards of him and another within 10 yards. Work that one out. A referee who doesn’t know the 10 yard law? Delaying tactics overrode the rules of the game, allowing a team to re-set and to limit the options for the team who’d won the free kick.
Back to keepers, at one time, they had to take a goal kick from the angel of the 6 yard box on the side of the pitch in which the ball went out of play. To speed the game up, the rule was changed to allow goal kicks to be taken from anywhere in the box. Did it speed the game up? No.
Today we take about clear and obvious, back then, the rules were clear and obvious and all the better for it.
The King’s Speech - Independent Regulation
At the opening of Parliament on November 7, King Charles laid out his plans for an independent football regulator.
Y0rk City’s initial reaction was “we welcome the King’s desire to improve transport and expect this, subject to it extending to include the “northern powerhouse” clubs, will allow us to offer free travel to away games for all City supporters whilst we will re-double our efforts to put an effective Y22 service in place.
Elsewhere in The King’s speech, we note the potential difficulties in ensuring all criminals serve their full sentence, but we are considering plans to keep our exit gates firmly locked until the final whistle whilst Matthew Lever, our new data analyst for recruitment will use his skillset to ensure no poor performing player is ever again substituted, we’ll make them serve the full 90 minutes.
As ever, we remain aligned to government policy of full employment, our enlarged first team pool and new development squad confirm our policy of offering opportunities to everyone of every ability, family and friend (and agent), waifs and strays included”.
The main opponents to independent regulation, The Premier League slammed The King’s speech as a mix of "cheap gimmicks and reheated policies", full of "empty words" insisting they’ll wait for a full transcript of the speech before asking Manchester City’s lawyers to provide an in depth response, who, citing their ongoing financial fair play charges, don’t expect to deliver a response until 2034 at the earliest.
Quick off the mark, The FA’s response was “we fully support The King in calling for an independent regulator for football. We have already dusted down and updated our blueprint on the subject and have now come up a name ‘Football United to Cleanse Foreign and All Nasty Sorts’ (FUCfans) for the new regulator. With his background in football and being a former Harrow schoolmaster, we propose David Elleray to head the new body. He has an ideal mix of football knowledge from working with top clubs, discipline in managing unruly children and a knowledge of lines to lead the new body. We believe our vision offers a clear and obvious way forward and will remove all subjectivity”.
One bill that didn’t feature in the King’s Speech was the controversial Conversion Therapy Bill. Its omission is believed to be a concession to all the big clubs to allow them to continue to do as they wish without fear of criminalisation if they fail to change their identity or behaviour or even to sign up to independent regulation.
The big fear for independent regulation is that it doesn’t do as it is intended. Financial Fair Play was supposed to level the playing field, it has hardly made a difference, new money comes in and big clubs remain big, effectively making it harder for little clubs to break in to the inner circle. Manchester City, Barcelona and Everton are just 3 clubs who seem to be able to circumvent the FFP intent. EPPP was meant to improve young player performance, you could argue it has, but to many smaller clubs it has been a disaster, the option to develop and sell young players is no longer a viable one whilst big TV broadcast deals provide big money which remains with the big clubs.
The energy regulator, OFGEM allowed a multitude of start ups to enter the market, at the last count, over 30 had gone bust, bailed out by others (and us the consumer). ORR, the rail regulator, has overseen several successful bids from various companies to win rail franchises to run services across Britain that have since failed. In both cases, where was the due diligence?
Perhaps, if The FA had done its job properly, there would be no need for independent regulation.
There has been talk of an independent regulator for many years, it is still just talk. Nearly every change that has come about has been moulded and / or watered down to suit the big clubs. What will be different this time?
If you handcuff the big clubs and make them comply, they’ll stamp their feet, have a strop and say no. How long will it be before the Super League idea is resurrected?
Artificial Intelligence
A couple of years ago in When Saturday Comes, I proposed the automation of refereeing decisions. Basically taking recent decisions, storing / meta-tagging them to use to compare to similar in game incidents. Find the closest example and give the same decision every time. Removing subjectivity, it would allow consistency and speed of decision, what more could you want from a referee?
Well, it seems that Elon Musk must be an avid WSC reader. He’s taken my idea, re-badged it as AI (artificial intelligence) and wants to rule the world. Pity I didn’t patent my original idea.
At the recent artificial intelligence conference, the tech billionaire Musk predicted that artificial intelligence will eventually mean that no one will have to work, “we are seeing the most disruptive force in history here, there will come a point where no job is needed - you can have a job if you want one for personal satisfaction but AI will do everything” he said.
What does that mean for York City?
We can debate the most disruptive force in our history, Douglas Craig and Jackie McNamara might be high on the list.
You might argue that some of our players in recent years did no work during their City careers whilst others (Neal Ardley included?) might look forward to Musk’s vision of humanoid robots that "can chase you anywhere", players who chase back and do what their manager tells them to do.
One day, will City field a side full of humanoid robots?
That will also allow on demand football on the big screen, no more going to the ground, just turn on the TV and watch the match of your choice from your own padded armchair (or padded cell depending how far AI might go).
No more need to go the ground. AI has come just too late to save Bootham Crescent, it could have been turned into a museum, just think of all the gruesome stories it could have told, all those secrets bulldozed to oblivion. Without a great deal of history, the LNER could become a leisure centre. With a swimming pool and library already on site, the goals could be turned into climbing frames, terraces could be converted into a fitness park and the pitch would serve as a giant picnic area. At the same time, some of our recent poor decisions could be incorporated into a maze like attraction whilst we have enough surplus players to stage a regular treasure hunt / “find the player” competition.
Meanwhile, with our recent appointment of Matthew Lever as “Head of Recruitment Analysis and Scouting Organisation”, perhaps we’re already seeing the start of City’s own AI journey. He’ll be doing what many of us already do, poring over the databases of FIFA and Football Manager to create a team that will beat all comers. Just as long as it doesn’t deny Neal Ardley the chance of a wet Monday night in Bradford to watch his potential targets in action.
AI should also see improvements within the Stadium Management Company where the new AI should be an upgrade on their current set up which often seems to lack any AI (“any intelligence” in their case) and allow better decision making in the future.
Robots taking over the world? I remember, it must be nearly half a century ago when BBC’s Tomorrow’s World predicted the day when cars would be replaced by personal, driverless helicopters, freeing up our roads and allowing on demand and hassle free point to point travel whilst food would be delivered in pill form. Square red tablets for meat, round green ones for vegetables, yellow for supplements, little blue diamonds for energy and white ones for liquids. Well, trade unions still fight to keep drivers employed on public transport whilst lawyers argue over insurance liability for driverless cars. Who would want to go to a restaurant and get a meal of red and green tablets, washed downed with a glass of white and ending with a little blue tablet dessert as you gaze expectedly across the table at your beloved? It ain’t happening any day soon.
For City‘s supporters, AI sounds like a win win situation to me, better players, no one work will mean increased leisure time and more opportunities to watch City. Good or bad, you decide.
PS Under no circumstances, do not confuse AI (artificial intelligence, that’s the one with no work) with AI (artificial insemination, the one with no play).
Come In Number 1203
If you’ve got a copy of David Batters’ “Complete History”, you will be familiar with the pages, each in a tabular format that detail a season's playing record, results, line ups and scorers included.
Initially, David created them with pen and paper before going to print and converting them to Microsoft Excel.
David’s son, Ian passed them onto Paul Bowser and with support from Andy Naylor and myself, we have brought them up to date and with the power of Excel put the individual season’s into a consolidated format.
Along the way, some anomalies came to light. Incorrect dates (2 games played on a single day and Sunday games played almost a century ago), disputed goal credits, duplicate shirt numbers, shirt numbers transposed in the wrong column, missing subs and seasonal totals not tallying with career totals included.
I’m afraid to say, having done a little work to help David with his original book, then, it is possible that I am the source of some of those anomalies.
The enormity of what David did really came to light. Pre Excel, it must have been a nightmare to check. But all readily apparent with a bit of nifty Microsoft Excel, with various checks and balances, many queries could be quickly checked and resolved, but a needle in a haystack to the naked eye.
The end result is a spreadsheet for every season in City’s history and another master appearance spreadsheet which links them all together to reveal the playing records for all our 1,200+ players. It is over 1,200 rows deep (one row per player who has played for City) and over 800+ columns wide (some recent seasons have need 12 columns (4 competitions each with columns for appearances, substitute appearances and goals)).
Along the way, we agreed on the resolution of many anomalies. Some were easy to resolve whilst Paul’s extensive collection of newspaper cuttings allowed many more to be resolved.
One involved Paul Aimson. In David’s books, he’s missing a substitute appearance in one game in the 1970/1 season, although strangely that appearance is included in Paul Aimson’s overall playing record. Having played 42 games that season, Paul Bowser was able to review match reports for the other 4 games and pinpoint the game of the missing substitute appearance, he even noted from the match report that Aimson had been booked in the game.
We came down to just one final anomaly which proved more difficult to resolve. Records suggest that Edmund Harvey made 28 appearances for City in the 1926/7 season and possibly one more early in the 1927/8 season, all wearing the number 7 (outside right) shirt.
Digging deeper, Edmund Harvey left City in the summer of 1927 and was an ever present for Bradford City during the 1927/8 season, even playing the same afternoon as his “last” York City appearance. His seasonal stats suggest 29 (28 + 1) games but his City career stats stated just 28.
Again, Paul was able to check newspapers of the day, this time the York Herald from the day before his solitary 1927/8 “appearance” and it stated that due to injury 2 players were under consideration for the number 7 shirt, Tyson from Castleford and Harvey. So it appears that a player with the same surname got the nod and made just one appearance for City (as confirmed by further checks and cross checks). Convention of the time was that players were largely known by just their surname.
By the time this was confirmed, all the seasonal spreadsheets had been created and linked to the master appearance spreadsheet by means of giving each player a unique heritage (City debut) number. Luke Daley recently became the 1,224th player ever to play for City.
Rather than revisiting every spreadsheet from 1927 onwards, re-allocating heritage numbers and re-linking them to master appearance spreadsheet, “new boy” Harvey (another player with a one game City career) was allocated heritage number 1,203, the next one available at the time.
Now complete, I hope to put an abridged version of the spreadsheet onto the YCS web site shortly.
It allows people like me to come up with stats like “Aiden Marsh is the 1,218th ever City player”, “George Sykes-Kenworthy is City’s 102nd ever keeper” and “Akil Wright was City’s 600th ever scorer”.
Happy reading.
5 Bands
Recently, I’ve read lots promoting the merits of York bands Shed Seven and Skylights, but to my knowledge, neither had put any City affiliations into their songs. I suspect if they were still casuals, they’d be taking the well trodden A64 / M62 highway most weekends to watch their football.
Rick Witter recently said that he’d not yet been to the LNER whilst Skylights played a LNER show before a Knights game in September, pity no one thought to drive off, mid set, in the lorry that they were playing on.
Maybe it is me and my age, but both passed me by. To some readers, this may be sacrilege, but I don’t mind admitting that when I first saw Shed Seven headlining at the Astoria in about 1994 I was non plussed, much more impressed by their support band, Supergrass.
You need to look outside York for bands that wear their football on their shirts.
Half Man Half Biscuit are famed for famously turning down a national TV appearance on Channel 4’s The Tube as it would have meant them missing a Tranmere Rovers home game, their songs are liberally sprinkled with football and many other "lad culture” references. Still going strong, catch them when you can. Dukla Prague, Brian Moore, Dickie Davies, Honved and Subbuteo are all referenced in some of their well love songs. Their catalogue extends well beyond football and is well worth checking it out.
Probably even more prolific in their football references are the Crystal Place / AFC Wimbledon supporting “I, Ludicrous”. They are possibly the only nationally known band who referenced a City player as in “English Football 2003”:
Shearer, Van Nistelroy, Gascoigne, Gabbiadini
Jaaskelainen's off his line
Lobbed by Thierry Henri.
Some of their other work includes “The English Football Grounds”, a ground hopper’s guide (“and the beer is cold / good / great”) to The Den, Burnden Park and Craven Cottage and “Highland League” which referenced all 15 clubs in that Scottish league.
An honourable mention to The Sultans Of Ping FC, to give them their full name. From Ireland, they came with a Brian Clough / Nottingham Forest fixation. One of their better known songs, “Give Him a Ball (And a Yard of Grass)” worked in a number of Clough’s quotes into its lyrics.
I’m was unsure whether their track, “Kick Me With Your Leather Boots” was about football or another fetish they had, but with references to "Ardiles", "The Boys From Brazil" and "Boniek", I’ll go with the former.
Sadly, neither band is active. Some of I Ludicrous were last known to be providing near round the clock care to elderly parents whilst for all their youthfulness, The Sultans now have grown up, responsible jobs, although they occasionally re-unite for one off gigs.
Closer to home, local bands have rarely shown any City allegiance. Honourable exceptions include a singer / songwriter, Wayne, I forget his surname, he performed under the name Walwyn and played a couple of Roof Appeal fundraisers in the Social Club in the late 1980s.
A few years later, in the very early 1990s, local skiffle band, The Rugged Aardvarks, were often to be seen busking around York, one of their best known songs was ”Keith Walwyn: A Human Goal Machine”, you can still find it one YouTube. Composer Paul Butler revealed, "I was a Rugged Aardvark and wrote 'Keith Walwyn'". It is understood that Paul remains a lifelong City fan and season ticket holder. He recalled, “back in the day, I sent Keith a copy of the song; he told me he liked it, I always regretted including the line about him being 'technically weak'; I think I just needed a rhyme for 'peak'. Also, I got the round of the FA Cup wrong in the song. Years later some friends of mine met Keith and rang me whilst they were with him, unfortunately, I thought it was a wind up and, thinking that I was speaking to a mate who was pretending to be Keith, I was extremely rude to him! Nevertheless the song brings many happy memories back - and gave my kids a chuckle!"
The history of York musicians and bands with City affiliations goes back to the 1960s and continues through to recent years with the likes of Chuitar. Recently, by pure chance, I unearthed one long lost artefact from the mid 1970s and a musician with a 20 year connection with York City. But much more of that on another day.
Greetings From Millwall
Really enjoyed reading Dylan’s account of the York Nomads Society, it brought back many memories. Back in those days there was a real lack of cheap and reliable away day travel for City fans. YNS certainly filled a void, but one prominent City fan has more cause to remember one day when the YNS didn’t run a coach.
March 9th 1985 and City were scheduled to play at Millwall. However, that was the age of endless cup replays.
The previous weekend, the papers had listed Millwall / City as being postponed due to Millwall’s FA Cup commitment, they were due to be in Round 6 action that day. It was a reasonable assumption that City’s match was off.
With that in mind, Denis Smith gave the players the Millwall weekend off. No training on Thursday / Friday and report back on Monday.
Millwall had won their Round 5 tie, a 2-0 home win over Leicester and were awaiting their opponents. From that game, Gary Lineker recalled, "I remember running on to the pitch at the Den when I was a youngster with Leicester in the fifth round of the FA Cup. The place resembled a huge trap, and the venom that hit us from the Millwall fans was unbelievable. I remember thinking to myself, maybe it would be a good idea not to score at this place!"
Their opponents’ tie, originally scheduled for February 16 (the day of City’s first FA Cup game against Liverpool) had been postponed. Repeated attempts to play it were weather thwarted. As the thaw set in, the game finally went ahead on Monday March 4. A draw, 2 days later the replay was also drawn and the next afternoon, the FA ordered the second replay to go ahead on Saturday March 9 and that City’s game at Millwall was on.
With his players dispersed across the country, it was a busy Thursday afternoon for Smith and Viv Busby to phone their players and get them back to York, set up team and make travels arrangements.
Meanwhile The Nomads were left with no time to book a coach and more importantly, sell seats. Given the reputation of the original Den, who in their right mind would want to visit?
A couple of intrepid and prominent City supporters made their own separate ways to the Den. This was in the days when Cold Blow Lane and the surrounding New Cross area had a fearsome reputation.
One entered the ground, collar up, head bowed. He thrust out the exact money at the turnstiles and went into the ground, he purchased a programme in the same silent manner and dare not go to the tea kiosk and reveal his northern accent.
All was going well. No Millwall fans had twigged him and he saw no fellow City fan, that meant he didn’t have to acknowledge anyone he knew. Or so he thought.
5 minutes before kick off, the teams come out and warm up, City at the end where our intrepid fan was standing, he didn’t cheer City, just kept reading his programme. Young City full back, Steve Senior spotted him, “Hi Frank” (Frank may be an assumed name to preserve his identify), our City fan ignored him, looked over his shoulder, pretending to see who Steve Senior was shouting out, an even louder “Hi Frank” followed and only after a third greeting, did our City fan finally furtively acknowledge Steve Senior.
The game kicked off with our City fan fearing for his safety. City went down to a routine 1-0 defeat. Our performance gave the home fans no reason to get excited. Frank escaped unscathed.
Meanwhile that day, Millwall’s next cup opponents were confirmed. Luton beat Watford at the 3rd attempt to set up a home quarter final game with Millwall on the following Wednesday.
A pay on the gate match descended into chaos with violence before, during and after the game.
Older readers might remember the TV coverage of the game, it was headline TV news as the Luton and Millwall fans fought a pitch battle on the Kenilworth Road pitch, the game was suspended for 25 minutes at one stage as seats were ripped from the stands and used as weapons.
It was one of the worst incidents of football hooliganism during the 1980s.
David Evans, the Luton chairman, a staunch Conservative party member and Thatcher disciple used the match as a part of his argument to bring in a football membership / identify card scheme. He was to ban away fans from Kenilworth Road for the next 4 years.
For his efforts at Millwall, Steve Senior earned himself a place on a lower step in York City’s naughty boys’ steps.
Ryan Whitley
Neither Andy Warrington or Ron Hillyard will go down in history as City’s best ever goalkeeper. I think to that list we can now add Ryan Whitley. All 3 were young keepers who made their early senior appearances with City.
I remember coming back from a day’s trainspotting (split loyalties in those days) at Derby Works Open Day on August Bank Holiday Saturday in 1971 and picking up the Sports Press at the station. I’d missed the game to go Derby with my late brother and our best friend, I won’t name, him, but today, his younger brother and his 2 sons are members of a well known City supporting family.
City had lost 3-2 at home to Plymouth, thanks largely due to 2 Ron Hillyard howlers. He was soon to be replaced by Graeme Crawford.
After City, Ron Hillyard became a Gillingham legend, where he played a club record 657 games keeping 202 clean sheets.
Roll on 24 years and Andy Warrington made his City debut against Manchester United thanks to Dean Kiely’s injury at Hull a few days earlier. To this day, I still maintain that Warrington made his City debut at Hull, ordered by Alan Little, he stood on the terraces, behind the goal and was constantly barking instructions to Paul Baker, our stand in keeper in the days when places on the subs’ bench were reserved for outfield players.
Andy Warrington never quite made it at City, playing 61 games (exactly the same number as Hillyard) over 4 seasons. Given the chance to start as City’s number one after Kiely left, he was prone to the odd mistake. Tim Clarke, Mark Prudhoe, Mark Samways and Bobby Mimms all pulled on the keeper’s gloves before he was finally released in 1999. He went onto play over 200 games for both Doncaster and Rotherham, usually at a level above City before he finally retired in 2018.
With Kiely in goal and Warrington considered to be a hot prospect, I wonder if City ever regreted releasing our schoolboy keeper, 2 years younger than Warrington, in 1996? Paul Robinson signed apprentice forms with Leeds. Spurs and England followed. His career is well documented elsewhere.
Where will Ryan Whitley be in 20 years time? 400+ games behind him I hope. If his career is anything like those of Ron Hillyard and Andy Warrington, many will be at a level above City. File under “One That Got Away”?
He is the latest in a long line of City youngsters who have failed to make the grade with City, undoubtedly talented, I did wonder whether Notts County might have made a cheeky bid for him in 2023 summer after his display there at the end of last season. This season saw an early recall from a season long loan and a spell in goal. Playing in a dysfunctional side, he had his moments and his critics. Much as its never nice to see one of our own move on, I sure the chance of regular football will allow Ryan to flourish. Second choice behind David Stockdale, he can take inspiration from Stockdale that being released as a youngster by City isn’t the end of the world.
On the biggest debating points in the new frontiers days and beyond on the YCS web site City keeper's pages is who is City‘s greatest ever keeper.
Calculated via statistical analysis, with a minimum 25 league games played criteria and without regards to the division in which we were playing, rather unsurprisingly, the statistical outcome was skewed towards keepers who had relatively short City careers in successful sides.
You could argue that Graeme Crawford was our best ever keeper. He kept goal in all our Division 2 (now The Championship) games. Before that he kept clean sheets in 11 consecutive league games. His later years saw his performances drop as Wilf McGuinness’s side suffered 2 successive relegation seasons.
Roll forward 10 years and Roger Jones will have his supporters. He was a rock behind a solid and rarely breached defence as City’s attack swept aside all comers during our 1983/4 Division 4 championship winning season. At the veteran stage of his career, his class was clear but he wasn’t called into action nearly as much as many of City’s keepers.
A decade later, Dean Kiely is another strong candidate. In my lifetime, he is one City keeper to have gone onto have a long career as the top level. His Bootham Crescent years saw City on a largely upwards trajectory, he was the last line of defence in a number of high profile games, Wembley, play offs and Old Trafford included.
In 1994, when I spoke to the late David Batters, he said, "in my opinion Des Thompson was certainly one of the best (keepers). Tommy Forgan must rate as the most popular whilst Roger Jones and Graeme Crawford were both outstanding during their careers with City. In the fullness of time, however, Dean Kiely may well rank as City's number one keeper in their history". David was possibly right.
During the 1993/4 season, Dean Kiely kept a club record 25 clean sheets (including 4 cup games and a play off game).
In the fullness of time, it is to be hoped that Ryan Whitley can fulfil his early potential and enjoy a long career in the professional career. Another that got away?
St Valentine’s Day Massacre
The city of York has a long history of power struggles, all trying to seize ultimate control of the city’s prized possession ever since Michael “Preacher Man” Sinclair rode off into the sunset in 1991.
“Tyrant” Craig never saw eye to eye with anyone, ruling with an iron fist before fleeing town with his posse and their new found, ill gotten gains. Others came and went, all promising riches, none delivered, all driven out of town.
Local hero “Double M” had brought a new dynamic, rallying all the citizens, but all his promises turned out to be fools’ gold.
New sheriff, Matt “The Mug” (“I ain’t nobody’s mug”) Ugg, from the deep south sought to extend his influence and bring law and order to the feuding north where in fighting was rife and to cleanse it of other evil forces that sought to rake off all the profits for themselves.
As the angry mob were baying for blood, “The Mug” took out “Double M” with a single shot just as sunset fell one late summer evening.
A man on a mission, “The Mug” rounded up his gang of sharp shooters seeking to cull all the other dissidents and dead wood.
Fearing for their safety, some fled the city, to all points north, south, east and west; Dorking, Scarborough and Macclesfield included. Others sought temporary refuge in far flung places, Truro, Blyth and points in between, honing their skills and plotting their revenge and triumphant return.
Frustrated by The “a contract is a contract” PFA, “The Mug” was in no mode for compromise.
The showdown came one day in mid February when a chance to get rid of the ne’er do wells in one fell swoop arose.
On the orders of the new deputy, the miscreants were lined up, stretching, warming up, getting ready for action. “The Mug” took aim, a perfect hit, “Big Man Josh” was downed in one, quickly switching feet, shot 2 took out “ZZ”. To prove it was no fluke, “Hard Man Neal” took over, unloading 2 bullet shots with equal dexterity, he took out “QC” and “Glove Man Watts” with clean hits. “The Mug” had taught his posse well as back ups “NC” and “Dead Eyed Dazzler” finished the job, their 4 shots taking out “Sick Note”, “Little Fish” and “Wheelbarrow” and “Junior”.
Going about their everyday business, the 8 downed men lay prostrate on the floor, their City careers ended.
The dead wood was cut out, leaving a lean and mean squad ready to fight all comers.
Meanwhile, family matriarch, Annie “Get Your Gin” Ugg was plotting a much bigger victory, how to gain control of the alcohol trade.
Many thought the “Council Crew” had a steely grip on the liquor trade and all other contracts across the city, with total control over supply, they were screwing the last drop of revenue out of the masses with their overpriced and under quality drinks. All Annie wanted to do was to offer the city faithful a proper drink at a fair price without the “Council Crew” creaming off most of the profits.
On the day of the showdown, striding into the "Council Crew’s" hideout, Ma Ugg thumped her fist on the table, “I want prohibition, not promotion”, she demanded, “The Mug” leant across the table and whispered in her ear, “Ma, I think you mean promotion not prohibition”.
“I demand promotion, not prohibition”, was the call, the “Council Crew” insisted not over their bodies. “I want to sell my own liquor at my own prices and take the profits for the people”. The council was unyielding, the meeting was deadlocked.
Plotting their next steps, “The Mug” and “Ma” called upon their new January reinforcements to help to drive the ”Council Crew” out of town once and for all.
Ma devised a cunning plan. She’d drive all the council members out of town herself. “I’ll show them how to run a business, I’ll show them how to run a proper little business”. Driving them east on the long road out of York, they ended up in a windy outpost of Scarborough. Seeing the bright lights of Flamingo Land, the “Council Crew” thought they were in for a wild time with all the mermaids and other sea animals.
“Sheriff Greening, they’re all yours, feed them to the sharks”. Ma’s wish was the sheriff’s command. The “Council Crew” were no more. Sheriff Greening returned to his hickledy - pickledy ramshackle township with just the tumbleweed rolling gently across his deserted prairie that stretched out into the distance.
The Mug turned to Ma and said, “Ma you done a grand old job, let the fun begin, there will be good times ahead for the city faithful, the pints and points will flow in abundance”.
To be continued.
Please be aware this bears no relationship with the St Valentine’s Day massacre in Boston 1929 where the weapon of choice were guns, not footballs and the assassins took out just 7 victims.
Nantwich – The End Of The Development Squad?
Did the Nantwich Town defeat put an end to the concept of City’s development squad?
If you listened to Neil Ardley and Neil Cox during the week of the game, both commented on the number of fringe players knocking on their door asking for a game.
With a number of changes to the starting eleven, of the many fringe players included, few, if any, could be said to have enhanced their prospects, whilst some of the more senior members of the side seemed to struggle alongside new teammates.
So, how many young development squad players should be expected to make the grade at first team level?
I’d say if 2 a season successfully make the step up then a team is doing well, indeed really well. Look across The Premier League, how many home grown / home developed players play for any side?
How many development players do City have? A lot more than 2.
Although a different dynamic, how many City youth players successfully make the step-up? None since Christian Fox and Lee Bullock can be said to have had reasonable City careers. I’m discounting Ben Godfrey as the route to financial riches has been firmly blocked by the Premier League and EPPP. In recent years, a number of young players have made the step up, Ryan Whitley being the latest, but none made a real impact with City. He is arguably the most successful since 2004.
Since 2009, in only 2 seasons, City have run a reserve side. Young players, extended squad players have not had a platform to play games for City. Effectively, they had no pathway into the first team, their careers hit a dead end.
Food for thought. Wasted youth on a road to nowhere. At every level of football, a very high percentage of players fall by the wayside.
Development might be seen to be “not ready”. In some cases that may well be the case, but I wouldn’t imagine someone like Quevin Castro wanted to step down from development football at WBA for the same at York.
Meanwhile, this season, we have a handful of players who are playing barely any football. The latest, including Siziba, Joshua, Castro and Kennedy, given City's squad, none are getting proper game time.
Playing reserve team football for City might be one answer, playing on loan for another team might be another answer.
Whilst training with City but not playing, can any say that they are improving their claims to a first team place?
No, they seem to be drifting further away from the first team, kicking their heels at City, seemingly going backwards, possibly demoralised by training all week and no game time, seeing their careers as a professional footballer coming closer to its end. Gameless, they are certainly not pressing their claims for a game, with City or elsewhere.
Whilst a player may sometimes have valid reasons to turn down a loan move, at the end of the day, if they are not playing, they are not improving.
Meanwhile, City continue to pluck first team new blood from the transfer and loan markets.
George Sykes – Kenworthy and Will Davies were both plucked from lower league football and able to step into our first team, both hardened by several seasons’ of men’s football and proper games behind them after being binned by Football League clubs’ academies at 16.
They showed they have the talent and temperament; proven over several seasons, albeit at a lower level. It appears to have been a low risk approach to recruitment, although, progression from part time to full time football is by no means purely down to footballing ability.
Billy Chadwick arrives with plenty of games behind him.
Meanwhile, there has been a clamour for the likes of Finlay Barnes, Cedric Main and Sam Sanders to come back early from loan spells and be first team contenders. They couldn’t due to loan deals and given the loaning club’s situation, why shouldn’t they insist on “no call back” clauses, especially if City considered those players to be deemed not first team ready.
They are now some of the reserves who appear closest to the first team squad having spent the first half of the season out on loan, playing week in, week out, honing their skills and strengthening their bodies thanks to the rigours of regular men’s football.
Targeting young “men’s ready proven” players and the use of the loan system at an appropriate level might be the way forward.
Food for thought?
That is not to say there is never a place for a reserve side one day. With a squad size of 23 - 26, you have a decent size core first team squad and some more younger players looking to step up.
Even with our bloated squad, it has reached 39 professionals, albeit up to 16 of them were away on loan or out injured at times, given cup tied players, sometimes we’ve been down to just 21 players available for selection, including multiple keepers and a handful of junior professionals.
A reserve side, rather than a development side, might one day be a better option for City. Under City’s control, fringe players and leading academy players, supplemented by triallists, could play reserve team football. Back in the day, City supplemented their reserve side with various local players like Tony Canham and Andy Leaning, both spending nearly a season playing for City’s reserve side as triallists from local amateur clubs proving they were ready to step up to League football.
One day soon, playing every week for City’s reserves, every week they would have a weekly chance to press for a first team place. Readily available if their form merited promotion or if a first team player was injured. These should be players near ready for first team football, not “2 or 3 year projects”.
However, it has previously been noted, by former managers and myself (in an earlier issue), just where would a City team fit into reserve team football and how much would the players gain from it? As a non league side, well done the reserve league food chain.
Let’s hope City have learned lessons of this season’s hastily assembled squad, so hastily that is has turned into a massive own goal, and that for next season we have a properly constituted set up.
One important lesson might well be the make up of next season’s squad. I suspect the club does not yet have the infrastructure to support such a large squad, be it in the size and facilities at the training ground or the staff size.
Listening to Neal Ardley, you get the impression that training ground was nearly falling down and not fit for purpose when he arrived. Certainly changes have already been made, but some others might take longer to implement. With facilities already stretched by nearly 40 players and an academy side, the pressure on space means scaling up to add extra facilities (pitches, gym, kitchen / canteen included) must be immense. That is before consideration is given to the state of the area and its proneness to flooding.
Whilst a successful reserve side and academy are surely important planks of the club infrastructure that Neal Ardley has so often referenced as being in need of strengthening, his more important building blocks should be the buildings and set up themselves.
For next season, let’s get the physical infrastructure right and concentrate on the first team which will probably mean a reduced squad side, but that is not to say there is no room for “project players”, but there should be one or 2, not a squad full.
Meet The Manager
York City South have a long history of meet the manager meetings. These take place on the eve of a southern based match in the team hotel and we restrict our meeting to paid up members only.
In previous years, Martin Foyle, Gary Mills, Nigel Worthington, Russ Wilcox and John Askey have spoken to us, all have brought their assistant along with them. The event was a regular before the NLN years whilst last season’s proposed event fell victim to managerial changes.
Organisation is often difficult and we don’t get to know the hotel until City confirm their booking a couple of days before the match. Over the years, it has been anything between one mile and 25 miles from the next day’s game. With the Boreham Wood game on Sunday, the team’s trip down was a lot easily and there was no need to delay the start time by a couple of hours due to rush hour traffic (as once happened with Gary Mills).
Every manager has spoken to us in an open and frank manner, invariably asking for one or 2 comments to remain off the record, but never has a manager outright refused to answer a question.
Before the Boreham Wood match we met Neal Ardley. He spent a full 90 minutes talking to us. Uniquely, this time, solo, without his assistant.
Ardley spoke with passion about how he is improving standards and facilities at the training ground (there is no more sitting in dirty and sweaty training kit on the table tennis table to eat lunch and that might mean fewer cases of illness and diarrhoea than when he first arrived).
He re-iterated his recruitment process which is initially based on statistical analysis. He is able to for example to ask “for a left footed winger who is dominant in one to one situations” and the stats crunch the numbers.
In the summer, whilst still at Solihull Moors, he sought a keeper, 2 names stood out, George Sykes - Kenworthy and another keeper had far superior stats. When he came to York, he ran the stats again and the same 2 names came up. After checking GSK’s character, he sent David Stockdale to watch him, his report backed up the stats. Ardley went ahead and did the deal.
The other keeper highlighted seems to be steering his new team to a much higher league position than last season despite struggling them to score, so it could be said the keeper is making the difference. Not saying he’s in that class, but it is not a dissimilar situation to Nick Pope’s time with City.
Ardley spoke about the signing of Billy Chadwick and a potential difficult meeting before Chadwick signed.
Ardley went onto explain his match preparations and how he works on team set up. For Borehamwood, his words to us were exactly how the game went. He highlighted the long throw of Chris Bush (you saw City practice defending long throws in the warm up) and City didn’t concede a long throw during the game Let’s hope next time, Ardley also highlights Bush’s long range shooting to his defence.
Naturally, discussion touched on the squad size, and given what was earlier said about the training ground and need to improve the club’s whole infrastructure, a development / reserve side isn’t high up on his agenda. Instead, he’ll be looking to work with a 22 – 25 man squad next season.
That in itself may present challenges, but he’s already looking to slim down his squad size. Already, he is formulating plans. For some players whose contracts end this summer, those plans may have already been enacted, whilst for those players who have contracts through to summer 2025 and don’t figure in his plans, the main action might come this summer. Maybe more about that on another day.
Of all the YCS meet the managers, Neal Ardley came across as the one who has the best interests of the club, not just the team, at heart.
Before 8am on the Monday morning after our meeting, in response to an email we sent the club offering our thanks for making the arrangements, the club replied, “No problem at all, the York City South meetings was always an enjoyable one for some of our past managers”.
Footnote: Ardley was pretty scathing on some of the standards and hygiene practices at the training ground when he first arrived. Some have already been addressed, however, Martin Foyle had made some similar observations at our first ever meet the manager meeting in 2009. Personally, I wonder whether such practices were allowed to happen due to the more hands off approach of previous regimes and I do hope that the role of Darren Kelly will encompass such areas so that high standards can be maintained across all areas of the club regardless of who is our manager.
Footnote: Read a fuller write up.
VAR Lite
How do we solve the issue of VAR once and for? Regularly we see aberrations with the referee, VAR and assistant VAR coming to consensus decisions which sends the media, TV, radio and press into a frenzy.
Would VAR be better if we didn’t put nearly every decision under the microscope? How often do we have TV pundits unable to agree between themselves if a decision is correct or not?
Some decisions, such as goal line technology can be classified as objective, correct or not, there is no debate, but nearly everything else can be considered to be subjective, some more clear cut than others.
The constant discussion just highlights the inadequacies in the system. Was the handball offence too close to the kicker, was it intention, was there contact, was there enough contact.
I‘ve not seen the latest figures, but in the past, pre VAR, authorities highlighted that a very high percentage (around 95%) of decisions were correct. You could say, if that is correct, was there ever a need for VAR? Since VAR was introduced, that figure has increased slightly.
Referees are generally on the ball (no pun intended), their relative few mistakes proves them to be human but generally good at their job.
If VAR is to succeed, maybe it needs to be taken back to basics.
Let’s do away with the panel of VAR officials and the pitch side monitor.
All we need is one VAR official and his bank of TV screens in a studio. The VAR official watches in real time and overrides the on field referee (and assistant referees), in real time, if he sees an error, clear and obvious or not.
He has the time it takes to re-start play or the time for a team to celebrate a goal to make his override. If he can’t override an on field decision in that time, to my mind, it is not clear and obvious.
The referee is in charge, he is under no pressure to review a decision or to change his mind.
There is no need for prolonged gaps whilst endless discussions and replays ensue and in the absence of an off field panel, the on pitch referee is under no pressure to review his decision, he just has to accept he has made a clear and obvious error very occasionally.
VAR Lite – clear and obvious decisions guaranteed and not a delay in sight.
Bobby Robson Calling
The recent deaths of Tom Hughes and Keith Lamb brought back to mind a story concerning their successor, Keith Usher. Whilst I didn’t really know messrs Hughes and Lamb, I got to know Keith Usher quite well during the days of the Roof Appeal. A Geordie, straight talking ex policeman, he was supportive of the appeal and always happy to talk football.
Unbeknown to City, I’d written to the FA asking if the England team could play a fundraising friendly against York at Bootham Crescent in the run up to Italia 90. England had played such a fixture against Aylesbury United a couple of years earlier as a warm up to their 1988 summer fixtures.
At the time, City’s club secretary was Keith Usher, a Geordie, ex policeman, whose hero was Bobby Robson (in the days before he was Sir Bobby). It was a standing joke at the club that in quiet times, the youth team coaches (Gary Naylor et al) would go into a back office, phone the club office where the Trish Westland, the office manager would put the call through to Usher. The coach would pretend to be Robson and try, usually successfully, to wind up Usher.
One day, the office manager took a call, she passed it on, insisting it was the real Bobby Robson. Usher took the call, not heeding the warning, the usual banter followed, the caller insisted that he was Robson, more insistent than usual, “I really am Bobby Robson, about your request to bring the England team to York for a friendly”, Keith’s language got riper and riper, "What f&c%in friendly?", his face getting redder and redder. The caller, maintaining his dignity and poise, continued to insist that he was Bobby Robson. With Usher in full expletive tirade mode, in walked the youth coach. Usher realised it wasn’t a wind up, he really was speaking to the real Bobby Robson, the England manager.
All credit to Robson for having the decency to call personally and offer his apologies that England had no free dates to bring his squad to Bootham Crescent. Bobby Robson graciously accepted Usher’s apology and the pair, who’d never met before, proceeded to have a good chat.
More YCFC naughty boys.
York Bands
Previously, we looked at national bands with their footballing links, including a rare mention of Marco Gabbiadini in a song’s lyrics.
Closer to home, none of Cyanide, Shove, The Jermz, Dave Sollitt (he of many local bands post Cyanide), Nick Jackson (8 Track Cartridge Family), The Redskins or Shed 7 (unless "Chasing Rainbows" was about City) ever got round to recording a City song. Pity.
The Shove did release at least one EP, featured tracks included Nutters Of York (a terrace favourite at the time), Raise The Roof Tonite, Pigs and Violance.
With the band's close allegiance to the York Nomads Society and their large following, Nutters Of York became a firm terrace favourite. A strong contender amongst fans for City’s run out music.
However, I’d still suggest The Redskins and the “Keep On Keepin On” is a good option for a City run out song. With lyrics including
We just keep on keeping on
It sounds just like “chasing rainbow” sentiment and exactly captures the despair and hope of the City faithful. I don’t think I’ve ever heard it played it over the City tannoy system.
The name Dick Sefton will mean nothing to many readers, but his City recording was played at Bootham Crescent nearly 50 years ago.
His association with York City goes back to the 1960s when he was a schoolboy footballer with City. Like so many more, he didn’t make the grade, pulled aside one evening after training, he was told by the coach that it wasn’t worth his while coming back any more, never to be seen at training again. Another teenage dream shattered.
Undeterred, another career beckoned as a music producer. He set up the Pollen Studio in Bishop Wilton in 1973.
Whilst Dick is now enjoying retirement in Canada, the studio is still to be found in Bishop Wilton under the management of his son. Originally dedicated to music, the studio has now expanded into film and media, at least one Premier League club (Brighton) is amongst its clientele.
Nowadays Dick is associated with 2 Facebook sites documenting York’s musical heritage.
Over the years, Pollen Studio (www.pollenstudio.co.uk), has hosted many local York bands who found the cash to put their works into limited edition vinyl.
With a studio behind him, Dick put into words and music his love of York City in 1974 in ’The Big Red Band”. The song was played over the tannoy on Good Friday and again a day later in April 1974, just a few weeks before City’s promotion to Division 2 (now known as The Championship) was confirmed. Unfortunately, the song has been long forgotten but if you search the internet hard enough, you might find it.
10 years later in 1984, Pollen Studio hosted York City.
Spring 1984, City were well clear at the top of Division 4. York musician, Bob De Vries, ex of York’s top punk band, Cyanide, was the brains behind, "Here We Go", a singalong of a popular terrace chant of the day heard up and down the country. Bob must have done a good job as Everton recorded the same song a year later in advance of their FA Cup Final appearance. The B side of City’s effort was "Hello Den, Gotta New Striker", a clever take on a then recent Alexei Sayle hit "Hello John, Gotta A Motor" and which managed to work in City’s use of Persil vouchers to get to an away game. Watch a video of the recording with Dave Leaper at the desk and Bob de Vries conducting.
A few years later, I recall, during The Roof Appeal, a local musician Wayne. I’m not sure of his surname, so I won’t say what I think it was to avoid any embarrassment, but there again, I might be completely wrong. A one man band, he went by the name "Walwyn", named after his hero, Keith Walwyn. He did a couple of fundraisers for us.
In an era when local record store / distributor, Red Rhino, hosted a strong roster, many being football fans who attended matches at Bootham Crescent when in York. It’s a pity one or more of them couldn’t have released a City song. How about "Brian Pollard", the debut LP by The Wedding Present, or "John Bryny Striking", from The Jesus And Mary Chain, or they could have just re-recorded the original with David Rush or "Scorin' With Butler", Ted Chippington’s classic which eventually saw the light of day as "Rockin With Rita".
February 2006 saw the launch of City’s (conference) promotion push CD "City of Dreams." The song was written and performed by 29 year old York City supporter, Neil James, and is an inspirational tune which the club hoped would assist their quest for promotion to the Football League. The CD, which also features another track called "True", was widely available across York. It was no cheesy football song, but it was catchy, anthemic and passionate, sounding great after spanking a team 5-1. It even contained recordings from the Longhurst stand. Tracks included City Of Dreams / True / City Of Dreams (Instrumental). Priced at £2.99, a portion from every sale went to the Guardian Angels Appeal and the rest to the York City Supporters Trust. Songwriter and performer, Neil James said, "I am a huge York City fan and wanted to do something to help the club which is a massive part of my life. To write a York City anthem was an honour and a privilege. I hope the fans like the song and will buy the CD as the proceeds will be helping two great causes". Commenting on the release of "City of Dreams", York City Communications and Community Director Sophie McGill said, "The song is fantastic and very catchy. The lyrics are very poignant and all City fans will really be able to relate to this uplifting anthem. Neil has written and performed the song on a voluntary basis and we would like to thank him for this unique fundraising effort. Since I first heard the song a few months ago, I’ve never stopped singing it. Hopefully, with the support of the local media, it will be a favourite in York and we will be able to raise important funds for the Trust and the Guardian Angels Appeal".
More recently, Chuitar, the stage name of Kit Simon, has penned and recorded a number of City tunes, initially "City At Wembley" ahead of the 2009 FA Trophy Final clash with Stevenage Borough, another tune followed for the play off final a year later before Chuitar hit the jackpot in 2012 with “State Of Mind” as City did the Wembley double.
In 2012, for the FA Trophy Final, Chuitar released State Of Mind and it was played as City's players celebrated victory on the pitch after the game. Back at Wembley a week later, a hastily recorded “York In Motion” marked City's second Wembley win in a week. Chuitar went one better than City when 2 months later he released in song, a plea to Adriano Moke to sign a new City contract. He’s described some of his music as "rap-styled odyssey" whilst one press review noted, "it obeys all the rules, it’s three minutes, it’s repetitive and as catchy as swine flu”. He returned with "Goodbye Gary Mills" (2013), "Wembley Paradise" (2017) and "Bye Bye Bootham" (2021). Many later songs being set to the tunes of top bands, The Stones Roses and New Order included. "Bye Bye Bootham" is accompanied by a lyric video featuring photos of the ground submitted to Chuitar by fans on social media. His moment recent recording was ““Unbelievable” York City” for the 2022 NLN Play Off Final to the tune of EMF’s song. Check out youtube and streaming platforms to listen and watch many of Chuitar’s recordings.
There is no definitive list of all the tunes that City have run out onto the pitch to. That's probably because there are not that many memorable ones. The earliest that I can recall is "The Happy Wanderer" into the very early 1970s. “The Happy Wanderer” was a 1954 hit for The Stargazers. Others include the themes from "Thunderbirds" (late 1970s), "The Big Match" (1980s aka Jeff Wayne's “Jubiliation”, our run out music during Denis Smith's 1984 Championship winning season), "Fanfare for the Common Man", "Ready To Go" and “Right Here Right Now”. Others have included The William Tell Overture (early 1990s) and in the late 1990s Verdi’s March from Aida was a staple. As I said, nothing memorable.
With new Henderson ownership era in 2022, the Trust created a run out mash-up consisting of The Cult, FloRida and some synth effects which was aired for the first time on August 6 2022. Again it didn’t last long.
Despite various social media campaigns, no one has yet come up with the definitive City run out song.
Many think that we have blown it
But they too will soon admit
That there's still a lot of love among us
And there's still a lot of faith and warmth and trust
When we keep on keeping on
Today it's sorrow
Look like joy tomorrow
Keep on keeping on
The Peterborough Method / Model
Does City’s recruitment this season (2023/4) suggest that we are moving towards Peterborough model?
Many years ago, 2016 to be precise, I came up with a list of players that Peterborough had bought low and sold high.
One common denominator (if you exclude Barry Fry) is that The Posh’s wheeler dealing model was predominantly based about buying goalscorers, the principle being that goalscorers will attract the most interest and biggest fees.
From the 40+ players I’d listed, their cost had been just over £10m and those sold by 2016 had netted over £34m. Britt Assombalonga, Connor Washington and Dwight Gayle were all on that list. Some are long since retired, others are still plying their trade, Connor Washington included. The list keeps being added to. Ivan Toney and Sammy Szmodics are 2 of the later examples.
Ivan Toney cost Posh a reported £650,000 and was sold for an initial £7m fee. Any sale will mean a nice little earner for The Posh, around £6m (assuming a 10% sell on clause) from a £70m transfer fee.
It was a model that City might have been looking at a few years ago when we sold Ben Godfrey, Ryan Edmondson and Gabby McGill. All went with small initial fees but each deal included sell on clauses.
Ben Godfrey quickly established himself and eventually moved from Norwich to Everton for a reported £25m, it is commonly understood that City had a 10% sell on clause, that netted City a further £2.5m, over 20% of City’s entire transfer income in our 100 year history. Depending on what Norwich’s deal with Everton was, there is potential for further transfer income from Godfrey if Everton sell him at a profit, a slice of Norwich’s own sell on clause that they will have probably negotiated as part of their deal with Everton.
The Peterborough Model has sustained them as a solid Division 1 / Championship outfit for many years, the regular influx of young talent proving successful on the pitch, sustaining their league position and then providing financial stability for the club as well as funds to buy more young talent. It’s a win / win /win situation for Peterborough.
Maybe City’s summer scatter gun approaching to recruitment was an initial attempt to find hidden gems, develop them and sell them on.
City’s later recruitment under Neal Ardley might be considered to be a more focused second attempt at “moneyball”. Talented forward players Will Davies and Billy Chadwick both arrived with talent and impressive scoring records.
The numbers were crunched and they went straight into the first team, “first team ready” seems to be the way that Neal Ardley likes his signings.
Whilst no fan likes to see players sold, when sold upwards, it means they have proved their worth and hopefully seen their club rise up the league. We all want that.
Such a model means players must quickly establish themselves, there is no time to be knocking on doors asking for a game, the plyers must be playing.
Equally, players must be on contracts to protect their value, that means 2, 3 or even 4 year contracts so that talent can be sold at a good profit and not allowed to run down their contracts and move on for free. Inevitably, that will mean some players that don’t develop as expected might be around for longer than ideal.
Peterborough, despite being a club with a not dissimilar footballing heritage and history, to York City (we played them in 18 league seasons between 1960 and 2000) have out performed City in recent years.
You could argue that since 2000 City’s fortunes have nose dived. Others might argue that the Peterborough Model has allowed The Posh to consistently flourish and punch above their weight. Since 2000, they have had 3 promotions into what is now The Championship and they last appeared in the Football League’s basement division during the 2007/8 season.
Many City fans would like that sort of success.
A word of warning. The Peterborough Model is not a guarantee of success. From that 2016 list, one of the later signings, at £600,000 was a certain Luke James. Rarely a regular at The Posh, his onwards footballing journey has been a downwards spiral as he moved between many clubs struggling to find his true level.
1973/4
It is 50 years ago this month (April 2024) that City shocked themselves and the footballing world by gaining promotion to what was then known as Division 2, but what we now know as the Championship.
In each of the previous 2 seasons, City had survived on goal difference, so even with a couple of key summer signings, expectations were low.
Striker Chris Jones arrived from Walsall, he recalled playing against City a few months earlier, remembering he got nothing except plenty of bumps and bruises out of City’s back 4. Bigged up by manager Tom Johnston, he was told that he was the man to take City forward, to lead the line alongside Jimmy Seal who had scored just 4 goals in his first City season. Ian Butler, a veteran left winger arrived from Hull for a club record £10,000 fee. Big money for City as only 2 of the other players had cost transfer fees, combined they were less than Butler’s fee.
A first day 4-2 win at Charlton was unexpected, especially more so as 2 goals came from midfielder John Woodward, never a prolific scorer, he netted just 6 goals in his 7 seasons with City.
After a home League Cup win over divisional rivals Huddersfield, reality seemed to set in with a draw against Halifax and 4-0 defeat at Blackburn.
September saw an upturn in form, allied with the signing of Barry Lyons, another senior professional dropping down to add balance to Ian Butler on the left. Both were the steadying midfield influences which allowed the flair and dynamism of a young Brian Pollard, and as the season progressed, Ian Holmes, to shine with their long and probing runs from midfield.
After the Blackburn reversal, City went unbeaten in their last 5 September league games.
October started with a 0-0 draw, the first of 11 games where City failed to concede a goal, 6 goalless draws and 5 wins propelled City to 3rd place in the table. Those 11 games equalled a long standing Football League record. Goals from Aldershot’s striker Jack Howarth book ended those 11 games.
Alongside league form, City put together a decent League Cup run, beating Aston Villa and Orient before a tie with Manchester City. As the winter of discontent, power cuts and the 3 day working week loomed, the game was played Bootham Crescent on a Wednesday afternoon in front of 15,360, many skipping school or work to attend. It resulted in a goalless draw with City losing the replay 4-1.
Main Stand admission prices for the game were increased to £1 whilst in December, the Yorkshire Evening Press had a busy post bag in response to the club’s dismay at the low attendances, popular observations were the poor quality of football, absence of food in the Main Stand and the state of the only ladies toilet.
The good league form continued and City suffered only a second league defeat of the season in mid January.
February saw City play Sunday football for the first time ever due to power restrictions. These were a win at Rochdale followed by 2 home games in front of bumper crowds, up 50% over recent games, whether that was due to City’s improved form or the attraction of Sunday football was debatable.
March was a key month. 2 wins over Bournemouth and a win over Grimsby effectively took them both out of the promotion race. City gave a rousing display to beat Bournemouth 4-1 on a Wednesday evening after loaning a clunky generator to provide electricity.
p>Before the second win over Bournemouth, Graeme Crawford recalled the dressing room at half time of the 3-3 draw at Southend. Losing at half time, in the dressing room, Tom Johnston said nothing, total silence. Just as the team prepared to return to the pitch for the second half, Phil Burrows stood up and insisted, “I’ve not come all this effing way to lose to this f@@@@@@ shower”. City recovered to draw 3-3.
After a strong March which had left City in second place, April was more attrional. The first 6 games resulted in just 5 goals, 2 wins and 3 draws. Maybe not always pretty, but representative of City’s season. City were a well organised side with a solid defence.
On April 27, 15,583 packed into Bootham Crescent, with Oldham up already, the title was at stake. The game ended 1-1, a result that saw City promoted and both sides still in the title hunt. Post match, City’s players did a lap of honour chased around the pitch by the majority of City’s jubilant fans. Each club still had 2 games to play in which to topple Bristol Rovers, whose season had finished, and claim the title.
Defeat at Halifax ended City’s title hopes with Oldham clinching the title. One point behind, Bristol Rovers pipped City for the runners up spot, however, if City had managed just one extra point across the season, it would have been enough to secure the title on goal average.
With manager Tom Johnston arriving in late 1968, he had built the side into his own image, dour. Over a number of seasons, he gradually evolved it into the side it became, essentially based around a strong defence which rarely changed. John Mackin had a long run at right back before John Stone arrived. Barry Jackson’s retirement saw Barry Swallow replace him. Alongside them, Chris Topping made a club record 403 consecutive appearances (over 7 seasons to 1978) and Phil Burrows made 251 consecutive appearances (over 4 seasons to 1974).
Johnston’s earlier signings were largely proven lower league players with a couple of young, eager squad players from the top division.
Throughout the season the side virtually picked itself, 8 players played 40 or more league games during the season whilst another 2 played 32 or more games.
The players knew each other inside out, the small squad size meant consistency of selection and the chance for partnerships to flourish across the pitch. Chris Jones recalled how in pre season, coach Colin Meldrum had drummed into the players, their positions and movement, the strikers knew their runs, the midfield knew the passes to make to find the man.
There was a real camaraderie amongst the players, whilst some suggested an “us against him (Johnston) “mentality.
Whilst only Brian Pollard and Chris Topping were the only locally born / home grown players in the side, an unusually high number of players remain in the York and surrounding area after they retired, at last count believed to be 9 whilst others remain in close contact with the group. As recently as 2018, the core of the group received a rousing reception when they were guests at City’s match against Spennymoor.
Will City ever again have a manager who lasts for over 7 years? Given in 2 of those seasons, City survived only on goal average, surely today there would be a clamour for his dismissal. Those times were different, managers had a real chance to develop a side.
In the following season, a largely unchanged side made a steady start in a league that included Manchester United, Aston Villa, Nottingham Forest, Fulham and more. However, in January 1975, Tom Johnston resigned to become Huddersfield’s general manager. Undoubtedly, the side was growing old and needed strengthening, but new manager Wilf McGuiness quickly set about ripping it up. His first 2 signings were veterans and they were followed by players with big club / top flight pedigrees. The canny buys of Tom Johnston were no more.
Out: Compo and Season Long Loans
So the “transfer window” came and went. For City, Billy Chadwick arrived as the window opened but the hoped for other signings didn’t happen. That said, even with the window closed, it doesn’t stop other players arriving, players who might have been hoping for a move to a Football League club.
So welcome loanees Danny Amos and Charlie Allen, both out of contract in the summer and playing for a new contract. Also, welcome Alex Hunt with a year left on his contract.
On the outgoing side, City released a number of young players, at last count. 5 players have left since mid December, the likes of Jonny Haase and Johnny Shepherd, despite showing promise, found their senior pathway blocked. It is not unrealistic that it took a near 6 figure sum to terminate their contracts.
Cedric Main became the first ever player to join City on a free transfer, never play a game for City and then to leave for a fee, undisclosed, but plenty of social media posters suggested it was 5 figures. For someone believed to have been on one year contract, that fee suggests he’s signed a longer term contract with Darlo, with me speculating it might be on a lower wage than at City but he maybe wants the longer term contract and chance of regular first team football. He has started well at Darlo and seems to be playing some of the best football of his career.
The other departures will have had their City contracts ripped up having agreed a compensation package with City, hopefully costing City not as much as if they’d seen out their City contracts.
Kevin Joshua left one day and signed a contract in Ireland the next day, so again speculating, he might have agreed a small severance package with City knowing he had a longer term option to go.
Back in 2015, I recall Emile Sinclair tearing up a 6 month contract with Northampton only to sign an 18 month contract with City a day later. Presumably there was some incentive for him, possibly a financial package from Northampton or the thought of 18 months wages with City (again at possibly at a slightly reduced rate), or a combination of both.
For the others, who all seem to have left the professional game it is slightly different. Football players’ contracts are unlike most contracts. Football regulations (with full PFA backing) need to be paid in full (unless club and player reach a mutual pay off). Clubs cannot unilaterally just sack players with a few week’s notice and a pittance pay off.
At the top of the tree, the likes of Manchester United and Chelsea have bloated squads and exercise plenty of time trying to move on their unwanted. It seems that United spend every transfer window trying to move on Donny Van Beek whilst Chelsea seem to have found an option for Romelu Lukaku, albeit by subsidising a good portion of his wages. Both clubs are unwilling to rip up and pay off their contracts, dropping millions of pounds in the process.
For City, suppose in January 2024, a player had 6 months left on his contract. Using purely imaginary (and rounded numbers), with a player on £1,000 week and a contract through to June 2024, he is due £25,000 in wages. Given employee contributions, a club might have to pay out £29,000 when things like employee national insurance are included. After tax, the player might receive £17,000. At that level, termination can be treated as a redundancy payment of which the first £30,000 is tax free. In theory, if a mutual termination / redundancy can be agreed at any figure between £17,000 and £29,000, both player and club are in a win win situation in term of monies received by the player and cost to club.
In January 2023, contracts with 18 months to run are much more expensive to rip up and that might mean City looking at other options in the summer when cash strapped clubs are looking at their 2024/5 season squads with fresh budgets to spend. Then a pay off might still work (but would be very expensive) but options around a loan with City paying a part of his wages might work better.
I know Neal Ardley has previously spoken about players not wanting to go out on loan, but surely a player is better off going on loan and playing rather than coming to June 2025 with no appearances in the previous 18 months and having to explain that to a prospective new club, “the manager didn’t fancy me and I didn’t fancy a loan move”. Only Mitch Hancox found another NL club, the rest have had to drop down the pyramid which might suggest they are not ready for City’s first team.
Using the above imaginary £1,000 per week wage, come the end of June, a contracted player will cost City about £87,000 for next season, an awful lot to write off. Finding a season long loan and subsidising wages might be a cheaper way forward. If, and it is a big if given this season’s experience, can we find suitable clubs who can afford to make a substantial wage contribution and the player wants to go there.
With 32, at last count, contracted players, about one third will be out of contract in the summer, so there is plenty of wheeler dealing to be done to move on the surplus players and make room for a new intake.
It could be an interesting summer. Will some “big names” on long term, and presumably big money, contracts be considered surplus to requirements and what might happen if the worst happens this season?
New Hope, Same Old Story (So Far)
The Ugglas arrived last summer and brought new hope to the York City Football Club.
For once, we had owners who were happy to provide lavish funding and had plans to drive the club upwards.
Big signings followed, Dipo Akinyemi, Tyler Cordner and Callum Howe were the early marque signings. All were widely lauded by our fanbase, as players to take us forward, a proven scorer and defenders who’d impressed when playing against City.
Other signings followed, we also had a vision to develop our own young players.
Pre-season, I saw one survey in which 8% of City fans tipped us for the title and 55% tipping City for a play off place.
Expectations were high.
Reality was different; Mikey Morton was gone before August was out. The fanbase had been split on Morton’s tenure; the outers got their way when he was dismissed.
Neal Ardley came in and pointed out many of the club's shortcomings. He started to re-style the club in his own vision, again, with financial support from the Uggla family.
As the injury crisis subsided and Ardley’s organisation took effect, results started to slowly, very slowly, improve.
Meanwhile, home crowds were maybe a bit down on last season. That can be explained by results, a smaller away attendance at the LNER and the promotion factor of a season earlier not being present. Away from home, supporter numbers remained high, regularly City’s following was the highest in a fixture round, including Dagenham on a Tuesday evening and Oxford City on a very wet and windy night in January.
Who could ask for better support?
A common City failing over most of the past 20 years has been our poor home form. February arrived and 4 home games, 3 very winnable, resulted in just 3 draws as form dipped.
Possibly the performances deserved some booing, but does that help the players. After the AFC Fylde home defeat, when Ryan Fallowfield had the decency to go towards and acknowledge the remaining fans, one fan engaged him in a heated argument.
Early in the season, Tyler Cordner publicly said the impact that social media had on his well being. A few years earlier, Sean Newton had made similar comments.
It is all well saying “man up” or to turn off social media. It is not that easy, the constant barracking will take its toll and even if one person turns off his social media, it is highly possible that he’ll still be aware of it in a crowded dressing room from others.
Meanwhile, at Altrincham, we had a small number of our own fans spitting at one of our own. When we see players spit at an opponent, its often cited as an abhorrent “foreign disease”, yet our own fans do it.
I’m sure that GSK didn’t go out to let in the goals and almost just as sure that other players don’t intentionally go out to have bad games.
Yes, the players might be on good money, but football is a short career, do badly and you are released. You could say, players are on trial every game, play badly and you’re dropped. Any player released by City is going to struggle to find another professional club, especially one where he can maintain his City wage. Players do not intentionally go out to have a bad game and to make mistakes.
Off the pitch, over the years, going back to the early days of Douglas Craig, we’ve had a succession of chairman, all popular at one stage in their chairmanship, who gradually fell foul of our fanbase.
No one criticised Douglas Craig in the Wembley / Old Trafford days, John Batchelor was seen as a saviour, Jason McGill was seen as a saviour, so was Glen Henderson.
Matt Uggla arrived last summer as our latest saviour. Being younger than previous chairman, I just hope that Matt Uggla appreciates that social media warriors can be all finger and no substance. He has come in for some criticism on social media, it is to be hoped that he doesn’t take it to heart. He will know that the finger often works faster than the brain and once sent, a posting is forever.
The Wrexham experiment has shown that a smaller club with decent backing can progress, indeed, increasingly, success in the National League (and other divisions) is dependent upon strong financial backing.
Whilst Matt Uggla may not have got everything right, the Ugglas actions to refund ticket costs after the Altrincham game has shown once again that they remain onside. Long may it continue.
FFP / PSR
I keep having a chuckle about all the ongoing Financial Fair Play / Profit & Sustainability Rules’ shenanigans in the Premier League.
The clubs agreed to the rules, changed them and some are still not happy and want to change them again. Rather than one size fits all, soon it will be each to their own rules. We’ve already seen Manchester City procrastinate over their 115 charges and Forest arguing 2023/4 profit (Brennan Johnson’s sale) should be classified as 2022/3 profit.
PSR is a misnomer, a laughable misnomer. How often do clubs actually make a profit? In reality they are allowed to up £105m of “allowable losses” over 3 years to stay within the rules. Some other losses are excluded. Everton reported £120m of PSR “allowable losses”, a £15m breach, but in reality, total losses were £360m when things like stadium build and academy costs were added in.
Now the clubs bleat about it being unfair to suffer points deductions, they suggest transfer window embargoes instead. Sounds good, but get a couple of players out of contract, seeking transfers or long term injured and you have a squad light in numbers.
It shouldn’t be too difficult for clubs to have a fair view of their financial health. At a very basic level, the main outgoings are player wages and the main income is TV revenue and prize money, all can be reasonable estimated. These are largely fixed and known costs. Depending on the club, transfer fees can be either nett income or outgoings and should be used to remain within the limits. Give me a spreadsheet and I’ll do it for them.
Whilst the financial year end is June 30 and clubs have 9 months to formally submit their company accounts, they must submit PSR information to the Premier League in December. In January 2024 we saw Everton (again) and Nottingham Forest fall foul of the latest round of accounts (the 3 seasons covering 2020-3).
Forest bleat around the sale of Johnson, they could easily have sold him in June 2023, not September, for a lesser figure, if they wanted to remain within limits. They could have made fewer signings, they didn’t. Actions that were entirely within their control, nothing was being imposed on them.
From the outside, plenty of pundits forecast trouble for these 2 clubs and that other clubs were sailing close to the limit, so the clubs should have also known the situation. Or was it another case of the big boys thinking they could do what they wanted and would not be punished?
Everton bleat, but in the first window in which they fell foul, they signed 4 high profile “number 10s”. Were they taking the “2023 York City” approach to recruitment?
Others want the “losses” limit raised arguing costs have gone up, they conveniently forgot that the clubs are entirely in control of their own cost base and that their income has also gone up considerably.
Manchester City’s long standing case is different. Seemingly lost in the mists of time, it appears there are claims of mis-accounting. All the time, they seem to drag their heels over what are now historic charges.
The Football League has a different method of measuring PSR, largely based on clubs being allowed to spend up to a set level of income on wages. If those rules had applied in the latter days of the Craig era, City would have fallen spectacularly foul, wages alone being more than 180% of total income.
Now we have Leicester City, their breaches straddle Premier League and Football League seasons. Further big breaches are forecast to cover the 2023/4 season which we’ll know more about next year. What a mess.
Outside The Football League, PSR does not apply, clubs are free to spend whatever they like.
This season, given City’s 30+ man squad, some reports suggest a trebling of our wage bill. That would put wages at much more than income. OK if we can cover the wages, but depending on how income is profiled, it might present a big problem if City were inside The Football League.
We must be grateful that Matt and Julie Anne Uggla have overseen such generous funding, even if the results are way short of what they and many supporters will have hoped for.
With promotion places strictly limited in non league football, it seems that every season it becomes more difficult to succeed.
Going forward, until City get back into the Football League, City will be dependent upon a generous benefactor. I imagine City’s season ticket income is largely eaten up by stadium rental and stewarding costs. Matchday income will barely, if at all, cover the wage bill.
Whilst Matt Uggla has come in for some criticism on social media, it is to be hoped that he doesn’t take it to heart, I’m sure as he’s an avid social media user himself, he will know that the finger often works faster than the brain and once sent, a posting is forever.
Let’s hope he doesn’t take criticism to heart and that he continues to deliver on his vision for the club.
Meanwhile, the Premier League clubs continue to bicker around solidarity payments to the Football League. Where is the independent Football Regulator when you need him? Not this year, maybe not even next year if you listen to the Premier League clubs.
LNER - A New City
Many people feared that City’s move from Bootham Crescent to the LNER Community Stadium would be the death knell for City.
I was amongst them. I remember when the York rugby league side left Clarence Street for the Ryedale Stadium in 1989. Crowds plummeted overnight and a side that would regularly push for Division 1 rugby found themselves moving between nether reaches of Division 2 and Division 3. A plan to move to Gateshead and gain Super League status never got off the ground. Apart from that, the only time the club hit the headlines was in 1996, a defeat against amateurs in the Challenge Cup. Reduced crowds saw the club lurch from financial crisis to financial crisis until it folded in 2002.
A new club has struggled for many years to go anywhere, support never getting close to the Clarence Street glory days.
Would City suffer a similar fate?
In the final days, looking around a decrepit Bootham Crescent was a sombre experience. The ground was falling down and the fan base getting older by the year. The glory days were well behind City. Although not everyone’s cup of tea, the boom of the Junior Reds in the 1990s had offered hope, a re-generation of the fanbase. At their peak, their Main Stand allocation of one full section didn’t cater for demand and there would be an overspill into Section C.
A chance in club policy saw the demise of the Junior Reds.
The move to LNER was unsatisfactory, the council and covid made sure it was a long drawn out affair. Plenty of time for recriminations and for supporters to say no more.
Would the crowds stand up?
You could say we started from a low base, the first game was played in front of no spectators due to covid and the next 2 were capped attendances as the ground’s full safety certificate was obtained.
Performances during most of the 2021/2 season were poor. Despite a slow start and worse middle of the season, City finished the season with promotion and an average home league crowd narrowly short of the home crowds during City’s 2011/2 “Wembley Twice “ season and would have beaten that if attendance hadn’t been capped for safety reasons for the first 2 games. Even more surprising when you consider the free flowing football under Gary Mills featuring Jason Walker, Matty Blair and Ashley Chambers when compared to the much more functional Watson / Askey side 10 years later.
At the time, the 2011/2 and 2021/2 seasons had seen the best home attendances since City fell out of the Football League in 2004.
Promotion saw a big uplift in crowds during 2022/3 season. It was the highest aggregate home crowd since 1984/5 and that was topped last season.
Despite mine, and other people’s, reservations about the ground, whilst not perfect (and despite council restrictions), the ground has come in for much praise.
Recently, the new ownership and Supporters Trust have been busy trying to right the wrongs to improve the matchday experience.
Looking around the ground, one sees a much younger demographic, a vibrant South Stand and East Stand with a much more diverse fan base than the Old Main Stand. Although difficult to quantify, I suspect an increased away support, under cover, has also helped to enhance the atmosphere inside the ground.
There’s also possibly a correlation between the decreased average of the supporter and the amount of positive backing and vocal support that City receive.
Many had predicted a new ground bounce, as seen at many other clubs in recent years. The 2 seasons back in National League have seen a big jump in attendances, up well over 50% and the 2024/5 season looks set to see another increase.
Season ticket numbers have gone through the roof. In my memory, there were times when only Main Stand season tickets were available and the discount, when compared to match day prices, was minimal. Now we have season tickets available for all parts of the ground and much deeper discounts available
For the 2024/5 season, a direct debit option has been made available. For the younger fans, the Junior Reds have been re-constituted.
You can debate whether “you’ll never win anything with kids”, but off the field, young supporters are club’s lifeblood.
Whilst I’ve never seen an official record for season ticket sales, last season, City sold 2,326 season tickets, that might even be an all time club record, when in many years, sales were counted in hundreds.
Let’s hope the club’s efforts to promote season tickets are rewarded with record sales and the supporters’ efforts to buy them is rewarded with a much more successful season on the pitch.
2023/4: The Last Word
Luton: Nearly threw up at all the journalists and commentators romanticising about their trips to Kenilworth Road, walking down traditional terraced streets to get to the ground and being offered cups of tea by the natives. It sounds like a world away from the traditional welcome many Luton fans have given opposition supporters over the years.
Financial Fair Play (1): Not sure if it is working, but the big 10 point penalties imposed over a year ago seem to have been watered down. It is almost as if it is worthwhile breaching the rules as the punishments this spring were so puny and had no impact on relegation.
Mikey Morton / Neal Ardley: I felt they both took the art of pre / post match interview up several notches. Morton, in his early days, spoke well about individual training schedules and preparations before he lost his way whilst Ardley often stressed the importance of good re-fuelling and recovery pants before he lost his way. Pity their results weren’t as good as some of their words.
Financial Fair Play (2): Clubs bleat about having to sell home grown talent as being the easiest way to stay within the rules, the transfer fee is “pure profit”. If they bleat too much, then perhaps the rules should be changed. As academy costs are excluded from a club’s “losses”, then perhaps “profits”, monies raised from the sale of academy players, should also be excluded. Problem solved.
Chelsea 4 York City 5: The number of permanent managers each club has had over the past 2 seasons. What has either club achieved in that time? Oh for stability.
VAR: I’m sure we haven’t heard the last word yet. Semi automated offside being just one of the “improvements” which will bring even more discussion. Talking of discussion, how often do we see 2 TV pundits offering opposing views on a match incident, let us get some ex pros fast tracked to become referees and we’ll then have even more differences of interpretation.
Southend: How many more last words? They seem to lurch from crisis to crisis, by the time you read this, they should have been back to court on June 26 so the story may have moved on significantly. I don’t know enough to say where the blame really lies, but chairman Ron Martin and Southend Council seem to feature prominently. Chairman and council, that sounds familiar. Efforts by as Australian businessman Justin Rees’ consortium seem to be blocked at every stage despite pumping in around £3.5m in the last few months. When will they say enough is enough?
For City, 2023/4 was another long season where our fate wasn’t decided until the last day of the season. Do we want the same again? Some seem to be talking about a mid table finish and no late jeopardy. If Dipo Akinyemi and Ollie Pearce can score the amount of goals they are capable of scoring, at least pushing for the top7. 1984 anyone?
This might be the last ever “Last Word”. With FIFA’s new World Club championship starting next summer, it looks like every summer we’ll have a major tournament, wall to wall football. Yippee.
One thing is for sure. We’ll never hear the last word from the players on “too much football”, they’ll take the big wages on offer, play the games and continue to complain about too much football.
The last word goes to Manchester City (and Aston Villa). Having been part of the Premier League and having agreed to Premier League financial fair play rules, City have launched an appeal claiming they are unfair and noting the “tyranny of the majority”. I always thought it was called democracy. Villa seem happy to hide
behind City and claim similar unfairness.
Ask Hinsh
In mid June, Adam Hinshelwood travelled from his south coast home to central London to meet York City South. By my count that makes him the 8 It was a packed house, standing room only, as Adam spoke for over 2 hours covering his journey through football and life and his hopes for next season.
There were about 25 attendees and Adam was on his feet for a full 2 hours, outlining his footballing journey and aspirations for next season. He was good humoured, affable and open with his answers. Having previously noted in interviews that he had not had any media training, he came over well. He showed a real infinity to those present and towards City.
He didn’t make any rash promises for next season, only to move all the numbers in the table in the right direction (more wins, fewer defeats than last season) and he honestly felt that City could have won all the last 7 games of last season.
He spoke well about how wants his team to play, expect a fluid formation as he seeks to gain overloads across the pitch. He named his preferred front 4 for the new season, which included 3 new signings and 2 prolific goalscorers. He went one better when naming part of his England side, “Bellingham and Foden pushing forward, Saka and Palmer out wide, with Kane up top with Trent providing overloads from right back”.
As well as “overloads”, the word “warrior” cropped up several times), when asked about Joe Rye, the Worthing centre back who recently joined Barnet, he referenced the height of Callum Howe and Adam Crookes and that he wanted warriors in his side.
Talking of Worthing (or maybe Callum Harriott), he noted that he’d not been involved in the recruitment of City’s new physio Sam Mannings, naming Paul (Harmston) as leading the process. Previous physio, Lewis Bulmer had moved to Doncaster at the end of last season and the new man arrives looking forward to be able to focus fully on one club rather than having a number of part time roles (Worthing FC and Hampshire CCC included).
Back to last season, he noted City’s tremendous support, referencing the good away support at Bromley and Solihull Moors (“like a home game”) and that the players were buzzing after the Aldershot game due to the last winner and massive support. Against Chesterfield, he used the big crowd to further motivate the players during his half time team talk.
Hinsh indicated that that bulk of City’s summer recruitment was complete, a couple more are on his radar, although at the time of the talk, maybe not imminent and would probably be the result of “one out, one in” and that we can expect further departures before the season starts. He is seeking 2 strong players in each position, he also hopes that young professionals from the academy, Sam Taylor (19), Bill Marshall (18) and Leon Gibson-Booth (18) will develop into first team prospects.
Touching on players, he likes his players to be flexible and able to play in several different positions. He would be happy to play Ryan Fallowfield at centre back and Dan Batty at right back whilst noting Joe Felix can play at right back, left back, right wing back, left wing back and centre midfield.
We all saw towards the end of last season what a Hinsh team looks like, with a summer recruitment and pre-season behind him, let’s hope we can achieve the results we all want.
A fuller version of the meeting can be found here.
The Boring Bit City’s accounts for the 2022/3 season (“The Henderson year” and the first season back at National League level) show a little more transparency than previous years.
However, there are still many more questions than answers. That aside, the accounts meet statutory reporting requirements and City added a little more detail by including a profit and loss statement. Although a welcome addition, it was at a very high level.
Given City appeared to be in financial difficulties in early 2023, the accounts are much more robust than many had predicted.
City’s turnover (income) was up by £1.4m to £3.8m, half of that increase might be explained by increased home gates (average crowd up nearly 50%, an extra home game and increase in match day admission prices).
In comparison, in 2024, at the time of writing (late June 2024), season ticket sales stand at about 2,300, if every one had been sold at full adult price, proceeds would be about £600,000, but given concessions, it is more likely to be much closer to £450,000. Double that (and add a bit) and ticket sales are well short out full turnover, so that difference must come from other income streams.
“Operating Loss” is shown as £125,765 (down from £707k a year earlier), in broad terms, this covers normal day to day activity before tax, it might be considered to be a view of the day to day spend or “current account” bank statement. Those losses meant City still lost about £2,700 every single week.
However, the big reduction in losses demonstrates much more control over finances than in previous years. If every supporter gave an extra £2 every time they passed through the turnstiles the loss would have been fully covered.
Moving on, for 2022/3, “Loss Before Tax” is a very similar at £125,556. This figure normally includes items such as “one off” payments, transfer fees or other exceptional items and so in City’s case, was skewed in 2021/2 due to the £6.9m sale of Bootham Crescent and / or write off of the interest payments that were due to JMP resulting in a £6.2m profit. My view is that it is due to the interest write off as the assumed Bootham Crescent valuation would have already been included in previous accounts.
Beyond the wage bill, there is virtually no cost (spend) breakdown.
Playing and management staff numbers increased to a monthly average of 44 (from 34) whilst “admin” (aka non footballing employees) were 31 (up from 25). The total wage bill for the 75 members of staff was £1.7m (an average of about £400 per week, although it can be expected that there is a big difference in wages between the top earning football staff and the admin staff. Given the increase in staff numbers, the average wage remained constant despite a number of high profile summer 2022 signings.
Although FFP doesn’t apply to City, the player wages don’t seem unreasonable.
However, gone are the days of the 1980s when City’s accounts revealed the top earner, one year it was believed to be Denis Smith who was paid between £35k and £40k in one year.
Beyond wages, there is little breakdown of costs (e.g. travel costs, rent, any JMP payments, general repairs / improvements (e.g. training ground), compensation payments, transfer fees, agent payments, stewarding, cost of sales, SMC charges and the host of other things a club spends money on).
In fact, the only breakdown is a split of the £3.8m turnover (income) between “Football” (£2.8m) and “Management” (£1m). Don’t ask me where the split occurs but it might be considered to be more like “football” and “admin / office” split. The accounts state the principal activity of the business “continued to be that of a professional football club”, I know of no activity other than football, so it might be argued that that all the turnover was football related.
In the scheme of things, paying off 2 managers (John Askey and David Webb) will probably have had only a minimal impact on finances in the year.
There is no income breakdown. A big chunk can be assumed to be matchday income whilst commercial / sponsorship income will be another big number. There is no indication of how much funding was provided by Glen Henderson or the Supporters Trust.
Most of the above is taken from the “Profit and Loss” part of the accounts, that is a financial account of what happened last season. The other main section is the “Balance Sheet” which essentially states how much the club is worth if it was liquidated. That figure is £3.41m, down a little from £3.55m a year earlier.
It has been well documented that 10 years rent was paid upfront and that an “extra” rental payment for the 8,000 uplift is due annually. Common accounting practice would be to accrue the 10 years “standard” rental payment that was previously paid and drip one year’s payment into the accounts every year. Given that, I’d expect the P&L section to include one year’s rent payments and all future years that have been pre-paid to be included in the “Balance Sheet “section.
Next year’s (2023/4 season) account should make interesting reading. In broad terms, turnover should remain steady (a small increase reflecting slightly increased attendances and FA Cup / TV appearance money) but a larger increase in player wages can be expected.
Footnote (1): Note the use of several fluffy words like “might”, “assume”, “probably”, “considered”, “more likely” and “expected”. These are used to indicate the lack of clarity and detail in the accounts, a feature of accounts of many companies far bigger than York City.
Footnote (2): In comparison, Harrogate Town’s accounts for the same period were about one third of the length of City, didn’t include a “profit and loss” sheet. They showed employee numbers of 66 (9 less than City) and net assets less than half of those of City. In my book, that makes City still the biggest club in North Yorkshire.
Footnote (3): “Financial commitments, guarantees and contingent liabilities: Under the terms of a compromise agreement dated 31 March 2022 between the club and the previous majority shareholder, future payments of up to £650,000 (2021 £nil) may be payable dependent upon football related income. This includes prize money received for appearances in certain competitions, gate receipts over a fixed level, any transfer fees and any club assets sold up to 1 April 2026. No provision has been made for this amount in the accounts to 30 June 2022”. It is believed that no payments were made under this provision during the 2022/3 accounting period. Read City's accounts.
Footnote (4): Don’t shoot the messenger, these are the words of a non accountant but a numerate person.
Hardly Enough Time - February 2024 - Not Used I didn’t see the sacking of Neal Ardley coming any time soon. Yes, results and performances were not what we expected and yes, it was easy to criticise some, if not many, of his utterings.
All said, Ardley appeared to see a bigger picture, the need to upscale many aspects of the whole football club. He started work on upgrading training ground facilities, in the process, ridding the club of the debilitating sickness record we had when he arrived. Listening to him speak, it sounded like pure common sense, apply basic hygiene practices and eliminate the diarrhoea epidemic that he inherited. He also added rigour to the recruitment process that was sadly lacking last summer.
Ardley possibly needed to spend more time than necessary in trying to get to grips with his bloated squad. To be fair, he said everyone would get a chance, Scott Burgess was one of the forgotten men who took his chance. Others were discarded. No different to any manager, trying to get the best out of his players and alight on a preferred first team squad.
You could see a settled squad from whence the team was selected was starting to form, we’ve all got our favourites but Ardley was the one who saw them every day and made his selection. He must have had valid reasons for sidelining some players, we'll never know what they were, but it was his choice.
He showed an eye for talent. GSK and Will Davies, his first 2 permanent signings quickly made their mark, others, mainly young loan signings struggled to make an impact.
Ultimately, he paid the ultimate price for his inability to get the best out of the players and results suffered.
We can only hope the next appointment works out, relegation is averted and City kick on next season.
This is where Darren Kelly’s role is so vital. As General Manager, his remit must include building on the off field improvements that Ardley instigated and that City don’t fall back into bad old habits.
Develop Or Stagnate - April 2024 - Not Used In January, Neal Ardley was casting doubts on the current viability of City running a development side, citing the lack of training ground facilities to accommodate an additional side.
More recently, Adam Hinshelwood has indicated that he’s been promoting some academy players to the train with the first team, squad and indicated that he wants to create a pathway from youth to first team.
Who is right? Will Adam Hinshelwood get his way?
With the shelf life of the modern manager, it is often easier to sign ready made first team players rather than spending the time to develop youth players.
Certainly, this season, City had no pathway to the first team, a large squad meant no opportunities for youth.
Youth products Alex Hernandez had a good month on loan at Winterton Rangers and likewise George Harrison at Bridlington before suffering a long term injury. Both impressed, they took early steps in “men’s football” but were down at Tier 8.
After a disappointing month at Marske, Maison Campbell dropped down to Tier 8 Knaresborough before securing a season long loan at Scunthorpe in December where he spent all his time on the bench.
Did any of those 3 do enough on loan to demonstrate a readiness for National League football?
Equally, of the “older” players who went out on loan and came back, Whitley, Main, Castro, Main, Barnes, Hancox and Siziba included, only Kouhyar returned to cement a long term first team spot. Over the past 2 decades, City have rarely run a second team. Some managers have cited the lack of development opportunities at that level whilst cost has also been a factor.
oincidence or not, our years without a reserve team have generally coincided with our worst positions in the pyramid.
This season, we have been reliant on other clubs to give some of our squad players a game. Are we doing those clubs a favour by loaning them our players or are they doing us a favour by giving them game time?
Many of our loans have been to part time clubs, the players might get a couple of nights training a week plus a match, is that enough to prepare them for National League football?
A reserve / development team with a solid league fixture list of around 20 - 26 games a season might be the way forward.
Those fringe players would remain at City, their development would remain with City. Daily the development squad players would have the chance to impress in training and weekly a chance to impress the manager in game action and be match ready if called up to the first team.
This season, without a reserve side, can we really say any of our younger players are developing?