Successful survival mission can act as springboard for the Minstermen

WHEN Nigel Worthington was named as York City’s new manager in the first week of March, eyebrows were raised.
Nigel WorthingtonNigel Worthington
Nigel Worthington

Not with regards his ability, it should be made clear. No, instead it was that someone with such an impressive managerial CV had decided to take a job at a club without a win in 11 games and in grave danger of being relegated from the Football League.

Even allowing for York being a model of how a small club should be run, the offer smacked of being a potential poisoned chalice for a manager who had been out for work for 18 months.

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Worthington, however, was unfazed, as he set about the task of keeping York up. Even a return of just one point from the first four games and his new charges slumping to the foot of League Two could not dent his belief that the job had been one worth taking on.

A month on from the Minstermen hitting rock bottom such faith has, of course, been justified. A six-game unbeaten run to end the season and a 17th-place finish mean Worthington’s reputation has been restored.

Speaking to the Yorkshire Post after York’s League status had been secured with a 1-0 win at Dagenham & Redbridge, the former Northern Ireland manager said: “You do put your name on the line when you come into a club so late in a season.

“But that wasn’t in my thinking when accepting the offer from York. I had enough confidence in my own ability to believe I could make a difference.

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“Speaking to the club, I quickly realised there were some good people here. I felt confident we could do something. Thankfully, we did that.”

Securing League survival was, indeed, vital for York. The club would have survived the drop – unlike more than a quarter of the 23 teams relegated to the Conference since the re-election process was done away with in 1987.

But there is no doubt that losing League status is a blow from which it is hard to recover, as most teams in the top half of the Conference would surely attest.

Thanks to the impact made by Worthington, York have avoided the ignominy of joining Halifax, Lincoln City, Chester, Darlington and Barnet in being relegated twice to the Conference and the 51-year-old former Leeds and Sheffield Wednesday defender believes the club’s storming end to 2012-13 can act as a springboard.

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“It gives everyone reassurance going into the summer that York are still a League club,” said Worthington. “We can now look at the situation and plan accordingly.

“A lot of players are out of contract so some will leave and some will stay. Others will also be coming in. The main thing, though, is that smiles have returned to faces around the club.”

Keeping hold of Worthington, who arrived on a short-term deal in the wake of York’s defeat to Bradford City on March 2, would ensure those smiles remained in place right through the summer.

Director Sophie Hicks said: “We want Nigel to stay. As part of that, we want to give him the best backing we can and, as a board, we got together (yesterday morning) to discuss our budget for next season.”

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Talks are planned for the coming few days, and in the meantime, Worthington will have the final say over the futures of the 16 players out of contract at Bootham Crescent.

Among those whose deals are set to expire are Danny Parslow, Chris Smith, Matty Blair and Jason Walker. With loanees Adam Reed, Jack O’Connell and Arron Jameson set to return to their parent clubs this week, just six players – Tom Allan, Michael Coulson, Jamal Fyfield, Michael Ingham, David McDaid and John McReady – are on the York books for next season.

What can be guaranteed if Worthington does, as the club hope, stay on is that he will not be thrown by whatever next season throws at York. Not after an eight-week spell that included York’s run without a win being extended to 16 games, conceding a potentially season-defining equaliser in stoppage time to a relegation rival and slumping to the foot of League Two 24 hours before travelling to Bristol Rovers on Easter Monday.

It was a goalless draw at the Memorial Stadium that began the unbeaten run that eventually propelled the Minstermen to safety and Worthington believes his players deserve huge credit.

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“It was a difficult start,” said the Irishman. “We didn’t win any of the first few games, but what we did do was get across how the staff wanted things to be done.

“Maybe it took us a couple of weeks to make that happen, but since then we have seen the impact in what has happened.

“Once they got the hang of it and could see the benefits, we looked a good unit.”

Asked what had made the difference, Worthington replied: “Two words – hard work. That is what got us through. Everyone bought into what we wanted to do.

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“The tempo rose and we passed the ball in better places. Even when results initially went against us, the one thing we said all along to the players was, ‘Focus on ourselves’.

“That was the message from day one. If we did our job then we would be okay.

“We drummed that into the squad and, credit to them, they bought into things. Conceding at home to Accrington (in stoppage time) felt like we had been kicked in the teeth.

“But, after getting over that initial disappointment, we showed tremendous character and bounced back. Over the course of time, I found that character coming through more and more in the group.

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“At Dagenham, the performance was not as good as it might have been. There seemed a few nerves out there, which I can live with as it showed the players realised what was at stake.

“The scenes at the end were great. Seeing the expression of joy on people’s faces and knowing you have helped, in some way, is a good feeling.”