No jealousy as Mills makes plans to end exile of the Minstermen

But the message from the Minstermen’s manager Gary Mills is that money does not necessarily buy you happiness.

Crawley are bound for the Football League courtesy of the largest budget in non-league football, but the York chief is adamant that spending your way out of the Blue Square Bet Premier is not the only way to progress.

York’s exile from the big time stretches into an eighth campaign next season after their bid for a play-off place came up short following a draw with Cambridge on Easter Monday.

As Mills prepares for his first close season in charge at Bootham Crescent, he will tell his players not to look too enviously at the Conference champions.

“We all know how Crawley Town have had money thrown at them but there are other ways and means of going about success,” said Mills, who succeeded Martin Foyle last October. “It’s not totally about money. You do need some, but a good football club like us can still win promotion.

“AFC Wimbledon are finishing second this year and their budget is nowhere near what Crawley’s is. It’s more about the players than anything else, and it’s my job to make sure that for next season I recruit the right players to help improve this club.”

With each passing year they spend in non-league football, York City’s right to call themselves a Football League club is eroded.

With Stockport County and one of Northampton, Burton, Lincoln, Hereford and Barnet to join them next season, the task of getting out of the Blue Square Bet Premier is getting tougher, with nearly half the clubs in the division having experienced League football.

For Mills, right, it is about striking the right balance between arrogance and ambition. “This club has been in the Conference for seven years and has not got out of it so we have to accept that.

“However, we have to have a state of mind where we think of ourselves as a Football League club with ambitions to get back into the Football League.

“It’s getting tougher every year but we remain positive.”

There is much to be positive about. After amassing 17 points from their opening 15 games, York were looking down, not up.

How far they had fallen behind the big boys of the division was illustrated further when Crawley flexed their financial muscle by making York an offer they simply could not refuse for Richard Brodie, whose goals led the Minstermen to the previous season’s play-off final.

Goals have been hard to come by in Brodie’s absence, although Mills fortified a defence that helped York collect 53 points from his 30 games in charge, a return bettered only by two points by second-placed AFC Wimbledon, and further evidence that Mills can deliver a promotion-challenging team. Their return of 54 goals in 45 games, though, does not add up to a promotion-winning side, making Mills’s key task the unearthing of another striking gem.

“Richard Brodie was not a one-off,” he said. “I bought Jamie Reed in January and he did well for me, scoring nine goals in nine games.

“So there’s players out there who are as good as, if not better than Richard Brodie. The job is to find them, give them the opportunity and believe in them.”

While not expecting chairman Jason McGill to give him a war chest to match what Crawley had at their disposal, Mills has discussed a budget for the 2011-12 campaign.

Mills said: “It will help me to have a full pre-season, and ahead of the six weeks of pre-season I would hope to have the majority of my squad in place.

“It’s still early days recruitment-wise but I know who I want.

“There won’t be a massive overhaul but I’m still to make decisions on some players.

“You have to be careful not to rush into recruitment. While it’s disappointing right now for us having got so close, the positive side is it’s given me a chance to work at the club for a few months.

“As disappointed as we are to miss out on the play-offs, we are delighted that we took it to the last week of the season.

“We showed we are still a force to be reckoned with, that we’re a tough side to play against and that teams have to be at their best to beat us.”