THE most fervent wish of this column is that by this time next week it is not trimmed in funereal black.

As the countdown to York City's survival fight ticks remorselessly on, the spectre of oblivion is within touching distance.

Let no-one be in any doubt, once Swansea City have played their basement clash against the Minstermen at Bootham Crescent, 5pm on Saturday, January 18, could herald the end of York City Football Club.

The final 'i' will still have to be dotted and the last 't' yet to be crossed. For such are the convolutions of City's current cash crisis that should a buyer not be found by Saturday's deadline, the club will physically not close there and then. The tortuous process demands that applications have to be made to the High Court to come out of administration and then to take the next ominous step into liquidation.

But for all purposes, unless a buyer backed by the appropriate financial funding in place is found, then York City FC as people currently know it will be no more.

More than eight decades of existence as a football club, more than four-score years of exhilaration and exasperation, more than 80 years of creating moments in history, minutes of pulse-quickening drama, hours of cheers and tears, days of daring and desperation, will all fizzle out.

It's a prospect that saddens this columnist to the core, even if the Minstermen are not the club I have supported since boyhood.

Furthermore, it's a prospect that should sadden every lover of the game.

Okay, so football is, after all, a game where a sphere of air is booted, brayed, barged, belted, and sometimes blissfully breezed around a pitch by 22 players. But when a club gets its hooks in you, then every single one of those kicks against, or for, can wither the heart or can elevate the spirit.

Football is sport's equivalent of music dripping with soul.

It is insistent. It is uplifting. It can sometimes be as insipid as it is inspiring. It is unforgiving as it is unsurpassed. It's the best, even if your club is engaged in perennial struggle. A club is for life, not just for a season, nor a spell of success, nor the duration of a new fashionable strip.

And so to see a club like York City, once a byword for financial prudence and parsimony, to be staring over the abyss is a mortal blow.

It is a fate that is truly at odds with all those tens of thousands of supporters who have invested a gamut of emotions down the decades, all those players who have applied blood, sweat and tears clad in the red of the Minstermen, all those people who have worked tirelessly behind the scenes often without any recognition.

Their endeavours, especially those presently connected with the club in its direst straits, merit far greater a reward than to be now faced with the chilling vista of football's version of the wilderness.

These past few weeks an executioner's sword has dangled precariously over the club and in turn their heads.

Players, who by the very nature of their employment cannot always be said to be paragons of allegiance, have demonstrated a dedication to duty that should not end with places on the scrapheap. They should not be consigned to a mad mid-season scramble to try to find a job in an industry where jobs are ebbing away in ever-decreasing circles quicker than water down a plug-hole.

Then there's the management team. Some, like manager Terry Dolan, have suffered the anguish of being with cash-strapped clubs before. Yet all have stoically continued to do their utmost for success.

Belying the fraught nature of the current crisis they have somehow managed to keep City on the coat-tails of promotion. That in itself has been a considerable accomplishment.

Besides the team that stays together on the field and in the dressing-room, there's another tight-knit unit in the club office and shop.

Their jobs too are in jeopardy, yet steadfastly, diligently, loyally they have striven to ensure as smooth running an operation as can be expected given the taxing circumstances.

Heroes, heroines all. If there is any justice they should be granted the opportunity to remain part of a continuing York City FC story. They deserve the chance to toast the salvation of York City. Let's hope they get their wish.

Updated: 11:01 Tuesday, January 14, 2003