IF a week is a long time in football then a year must be regarded as an eternity.

And, at York City, many of the events packed into the last 12 months would have scripted a decade-long soap opera at most other football clubs with phenomenal progress made off the field.

This weekend marks the one-year anniversary of York City Supporters' Trust's £92,000 donation to keep the club in business for another month.

Before receiving that money, the administrators had stated that the Minstermen's home match against Swansea on January 18 would be the last in the club's 80-year history.

But in the space of 365 days, talk has switched from the possible formation of a new community non-league AFC York City club to the fight to keep the new supporter-owned professional outfit at Bootham Crescent.

If anybody was in any doubt that City fans have saved their club then they need only cast an eye back to the club's perilous state this time last year.

After the £92,000 lifeline, Trust chairman Richard Snowball said: "The Supporters' Trust is prepared to work with any party who has the best interests of York City Football Club at heart."

Unfortunately, discussions with local business consortiums failed to provide a solution to the club's parlous financial situation with would-be investors mainly discouraged by Bootham Crescent Holdings' ownership of the football ground.

A Trust statement at the time read: "The ground situation is an added complexity that may impact on the willingness (or otherwise) of parties to make 'sizeable' donations."

So, with few other people showing concern for the club's plight, City's supporters were forced to go it alone and the results over the last year have surprised and impressed everybody in equal measures.

A fund-raising effort of £500,000, as part of the rescue package to takeover ownership of the club, represents ten per cent of the money generated by all 96 Supporters' Trusts in English football.

Twelve months ago, City's three home games against Swansea, Macclesfield and Hartlepool were certain to be the club's final Football League matches unless more funding could be found after the Trust's four-week emergency contribution.

Now Chris Brass, the manager installed by the Trust in place of Terry Dolan, is looking forward to three local derbies at Bootham Crescent against Huddersfield, Lincoln and Mansfield with one eye firmly on a play-off spot.

That achievement is admirable, especially considering Brass is working on a wage budget two-thirds smaller than his predecessor, but even more praiseworthy is the Trust's transformation in 12 months of a club heading for liquidation into a well-run business operating within its means.

The reward for a year-long battle against the odds would be a happy resolution to the ground saga and City supporters need only look back at the achievements over the last 52 weeks to realise their destiny is in the best possible hands - their own.

FORMER Evening Press City reporter Malcolm Huntington paid his tribute to 1955 FA Cup semi-final hero Ernie Phillips this week by referring to the time the reliable right-back masterminded a method to shackle the legendary Stanley Matthews.

Phillips, who captained the team during the famous matches against Newcastle, died last Saturday aged 80 at York and District Hospital.

Said Huntington: "I saw Ernie Phillips play dozens of times and I believe it was Ernie and trainer Tom Lockie who devised a plan to keep Stanley Matthews quiet when City beat Blackpool 3-0 at Bloomfield Road in the FA Cup third round tie, which I saw with my father. Blackpool, who had seven internationals, had won the cup 18 months previously and it was arranged that George Howe shouldn't dive in and tackle Matthews but stand off him and jockey him along the touchline.

"The plan worked as Matthews hardly got in a centre from the right and his contribution was minimal as City won 2-0 with goals from Sid Storey and Bill Fenton."

Updated: 10:17 Saturday, January 17, 2004