YORK City are standing on the brink of one of the most momentous times in their history.

If, as expected, the Minstermen reveal the identity of their new manager tomorrow, they will be hitching their wagon to arguably the most difficult role in football.

In the wake of the exit of Terry Dolan as boss, the club's new owners - the Supporters' Trust - have plumped for a player-manager. Whoever it is, and the jungle drums are pounding heaviest for an axis of Chris Brass and Lee Nogan, will be tackling an onerous task in which outright success can be counted on the one hand of a David Seaman glove.

The most successful player-manager of all time has to be Kenny Dalglish. In his first season in the dual role he led Liverpool to a rare Championship and FA Cup double.

A sublimely gifted player, who excelled in his native Scotland before then dazzling in England, he took on the player-manager post at a club then in the ascendancy as England's domestic super-power with ample cash at its disposal.

But as then Reds' team-mate Jan Molby later remarked, Dalglish only regularly played during the run-in. Up until then he had used himself sparingly. His dual control did not last much beyond that dream double. The demands of both positions, particularly for a player in the autumn of his career, were too exacting.

Dalglish apart, there have not been too many glorious chapters written in the book of player-managership.

Graeme Souness did revive a moribund Glasgow Rangers on his arrival from Italy, again at a club where resources were not exactly limited. After him the count begins to dry up.

Elsewhere this peculiarly modern phenomenon of marrying two jobs into one has been capped with a flurry of cup success by Gianluca Vialli at Chelsea and then modest fortune by the likes of Peter Reid (Manchester City), Dave Watson (Everton), Glenn Hoddle and Ruud Gullit (both at Chelsea), and more recently Carlton Palmer (Stockport County) and Gary McAllister (Coventry).

City themselves have not been strangers to the experiment. Indeed, they could well lay claim to being one of the founders. In 1928 John 'Jock' Collier combined both duties. However, his tenure as player lasted just one match in which he broke his ankle never to play competitively again.

Some 54 years later Denis Smith arrived at Bootham Crescent in just such a twin capacity. But the playing side was quickly abandoned likely attributed to the cumulative effect of too many raw-boned collisions as a dreadnought centre-half.

And, of course, Terry Dolan's predecessor Neil Thompson initially combined both roles, though once again with little success. Even when left-back Thompson shone on the field, too many times the Minstermen did not.

Now Bootham Crescent is poised to return to the double life for one soul.

The club's new powers have declared that the measure has been dictated largely by the fragility of City's finances.

Their approach is nothing short of bold. The audacious appointment reflects not only the new culture and ethos extolled by the Supporters' Trust, but just as crucially it represents a signficant gamble.

The role of player-manager may meld two jobs, but it doubles the burden.

A player, once a popular and integral member of the squad, now has to find a 'distance' between himself and his team-mates in his new role as 'gaffer'.

Then, there's all the ancilliary, yet equally key issues, he will have to tackle - scouting, recruitment, scrutinising rivals, dealing with the media, and at a club whose future is uncertain.

City's new boss deserves the utmost in patience and back-up.

Updated: 10:34 Tuesday, June 03, 2003