John Askey and York City can start planning as caretaker manager is made permanent

A 12-game unbeaten run earned Askey the division's manager of the month award for February.

He has also guided the Minstermen to the semi-finals of the FA Trophy.

Chairman Jason McGill spoke of how the former Macclesfield Town, Shrewsbury Town and Port Vale manager "has turned around our fortunes and performances in such a short period of time and has made clear his intentions and love for the club, the people and the fans.

“It was a unanimous decision by the board, and we always act in the best interests of the football club. In this case, we needed some stability and time to plan and build for next season – it wasn’t right to leave this until the end of the season.”

Despite the uncertainty hanging over the club, McGill and Askey are keen to crack on with plans for next season.

"I think this is a fantastic club and hopefully I can do the position justice," said the new manager.

“It was a very easy decision, coming into the club I got on very well with the players and the staff. It is a good challenge and hopefully I can get the club back to where it needs to be.

“We need to plan for what might be, or what might not be. We don’t know what league we will be in but it’s important we sat down and said where we wanted to go and what we wanted to do and players we wanted to bring in.”

Since replacing the sacked Steve Watson in mid-November, Askey has won half of his 24 matches in charge, drawing another seven.

It sends them into Saturday's match at home to Leamington in the play-off places on goal difference, with a game in hand on the two teams sandwiching them.

The top team in Conference North wins automatic promotion, with the teams finishing fifth to seventh playing off for the right to face the second and third-placed teams in the one-legged semi-finals, the stage they reached in 2020.

The former Football League club were relegated to the sixth tier in 2017, and have been there since.

Meanwhile, York extended defender Sam Sanders' initial one-month loan from Nottingham Forest until the end of the season on National League deadline day.