The University of York Football Club has announced ambitious new plans to boost the success of their various teams.
The club has enlisted the help of Leeds United Youth Coaches Peter Renton and Terry Curran (who enjoyed a successful playing career including a stint under Brian Clough) in a bid to add an edge of professionalism that Football Club President Greg Gardener admitted “has been missing for the past few years”. Gardner went on to tell Vision that “having Peter on the sideline gives us a little extra boost. For the last few years the captains have been running the training but now we’ve got Peter it’s a lot easier; he gets instant respect off the lads”.
The move to appoint Peter has come after a mediocre league campaign last season which saw York University end mid-table. Together with team captain Mark McLeod, Gardener has hinted that the team will be pushing for promotion this season: “promotion would be an incredible achievement but its certainly possible. We’ve got great squad depth even though we’ve just lost a huge amount of our first team regulars”. He added: “We’re an underrated team, coming from such a small university and playing in the same league as the first teams from universities like Newcastle, Hull and Sheffield. We don’t always get the credit we deserve.”
Despite the positive moves forward it would be foolish to ignore the fact that so many of the previous year’s players have left the University. Gardner agrees: “We’ve lost our main strike force, players who are going to get us at least ten or fifteen goals a season. We’ll be using the upcoming trials to look out for a fresher with an eye for the goal.” He added that though there was an emphasis on searching for a striker there was still demand for all other positions in the team: “we already have one promising fresher, a post-graduate student from Greece who has played as goalkeeper in his country’s 2nd division and was also capped for the Greek national youth team. He could be an impressive addition to the club.”
Gardner was keen to stress exactly how important it would be for freshers to get involved in the club. “The club is holding trials everyday of freshers’ week and there are several starting places in the first XI still up for grabs. We need plenty of players to come down and try out.”