Neal Ardley interview: New York City manager embracing challenge of getting old club moving forward

He started coaching with five years in Cardiff's academy. He got used to the way things were done at the top end of the pyramid.

These days, Ardley finds himself typecast as an expert in non-league football – specifically at getting teams into the Conference play-offs. In a club with a hierarchy light on experience, it is not hard to see what attracted York City to him.

But the level is not an issue for the 51-year-old and even after a short, unexpected break which he now sees as a "blessing in disguise" he is full of enthusiasm to be fighting a relegation battle at the bottom end of the Conference.

This is not a man who has found his level after relegations at Wimbledon, then Notts County, dragged him from the third to fifth tier, just someone quite happy to roll his sleeves up and prove his worth anywhere.

"We'd all like to work in the Premier League – you'd never have to work again," he smiles. "But I don't ever think, 'I'd like to work in the Championship.' Wherever I am, I'm learning, I'm getting better.

"I enjoy what I do and you have to have thick skin as a manager because people are going to criticise you. I don't ever take it personally. I'd like to think if everyone came and had a beer with me and got to know me, none of you would criticise me as a person but you might go, 'I don't think the team's playing very well'. I never take that part personally.

"I'd love to work in the Championship but I've got no airs and graces. I just think if you keep doing good jobs, like a player, you'll find your level.

"I'd love nothing more than to do a brilliant job for York for two or three years, get promotions galore and a Championship club come in for me so the owners have got a decision to make.

"Chris Wilder came up through the ranks (starting in non-league with Alfreton, then Halifax Town, and leading Sheffield United into the top half of the 2019-20 Premier League). Football's football. The only thing that changes when you work at (Championship) level is the recruitment – you've got to know the players who play at that level – and the quality of the player. If I want to play brave, open and expansive football, surely the quality of player at that level is going to be even more able to do it. I might have to simplify it a bit down here."

Whilst it is a world away from playing in cossetted top-level football – even in Ardley's days – non-league has its benefits.

Ardley says he is comfortable as a coach but prefers to be a manager. They are becoming rare at the top end of the English game, where clubs try not to put too much weight on the shoulders of one man. At York's level, it is all about mucking in.

Matt and Julie-Anne Uggla are new to club ownership this summer and as Ardley tries to say diplomatically, it shows in a squad which he sees as simultaneously over-stocked thanks to their enthusiasm to sign good players and unbalanced. (When did a new football manager last claim to have inherited a "balanced" squad?)

Goalkeeper David Stockdale, currently out injured, is doubling up in his first head of recruitment role.

Add in an inexperienced manager in Michael Morton, backed up by first-time coaches Tony McMahon and Paddy McLaughlin – like Stockdale, still playing, but doubling as a sports scientist in his case – and it is not hard to see why the start of the season was such a struggle, leading to the popular Morton’s dismissal.

No wonder they turned to Ardley, a manager of 11 years with one promotion (Wimbledon in the 2016 League Two play-offs), two relegations (Wimbledon and Notts County) and two promotion near-misses (Conference play-off finals with Notts County and Solihull Moors). The thought of passing on that experience excites him. "I've got 500-and-something games as a manager (his next win will be his 200th)," he points out.

"I said to the coaching staff straight away, the first two weeks I'll take a lot of the training because I want the coaching staff to go, 'I've got it.'

"Tony's already got it. He straight away went, 'I can see your rotations, they won't know what to do when you do this.'

"Eventually we can start putting sessions on (with other coaches taking the lead).

"David's a real honest guy, a lovely guy. The first thing he said to me is, 'I want to learn from you.' He wants to sit in my meetings and pick my brains.

"I love all that, I love being a leader. I will be hands on to start and if everything starts to go how I hope then the coaches will start to carry the message onto the training field and I can take the big picture in.

"When you're a manager you manage up, sideways and down. I've had incredible experience of challenges from Notts County where the owners who took over were unbelievably, absolutely made for football. The owner before, there was challenges.

"At Solihull we had a great first season, didn't do as well in the second season.

"Wimbledon was a fans-owned club; there's all sorts of challenges.

"An important thing in life is emotional intelligence, reading the room and understanding how you need to be in that room.

"With players, every day I'm thinking, 'Who can I talk to tomorrow? What sort of conversation? He looks a bit low, do I put my arm around him? Do I walk in from training with him? Do I take him in the office?' I'm always thinking about people – how I can improve them, how I can help them, how I can make them feel better about themselves."

Managing outwards will be part of it too as he looks to change external perceptions.

"The owners have been very brave and had a go at trying to sign some exciting players," he says. "I think the perception we've got to change is that people think York City are moneybags, throwing money at this like a Wrexham or whatever you want to call it. That's really not the case.

"They (the owners) want to run this football club brilliantly from top to bottom. They want to build this club to success. If it ends up with promotion going into the (Football) League and you're doing it with a sustainable model built with good foundations putting everything into longevity, that's got to be more satisfying than just throwing some money at it.

"The perception at the moment is, 'York are throwing a few quid around.' That's going to change. The next agent that thinks, 'I might be able to get that because I heard that' – it won't happen."

But – in-keeping with so many of their Conference competitors these days – York's Football League pedigree comes with expectations. For the man from Epsom, they just add to the allure of the job.

"I had loads of messages when I was announced from people saying: 'Great club,'" he says. "When I was at AFC Wimbledon we played against York quite a bit at the old ground (Bootham Crescent), which was great but falling apart in areas as we know. I remember walking down the tunnel to the dressing room and drips were coming down and stuff like that.

"It is a great club and everybody says, 'York, what a city!' I've been to York Races and stuff like that, it's a beautiful city. That's a big thing."

Not only is it the right place, it is the right time. Ardley was sacked by upwardly-mobile Solihull in June having followed a play-off final in his debut season with a 15th-place finish in his second. It came as a shock at the time, but is starting to feel like good luck to him.

"It was two days before pre-season was due to start when me and Solihull parted ways so I'd had a little summer break, signed six players and thought we had a really good window, then that happened," he recalls. "It ended up being a blessing in disguise because my wife lost her mum shortly after that and it was quite a tough time for the family. I started to think if I wasn't there, if I was at work, my wife and my kids were in a really bad way and I wouldn't have been able to support them.

"I ended up being able to be there and be a real rock for them and help them through it. Probably for two or three weeks my life was on hold and now it's come out the other end and I've got a real excitement about me. I've had a little bit of a tough spell but now I'm looking forward to getting my hands in and my wife's looking forward to spending time in a beautiful city."

First impressions suggest the odd couple of a southern former Premier League footballer and a struggling non-league club from Yorkshire could turn out to be a good match but as everyone in football knows, only results will determine if it is.