NEW York City supremo John Batchelor has pledged to stir-up the slumbering masses to ensure lift-off for his Red revolution.

City's new chairman was unable to hide his disappointment at the lowly attendance for City's 1-0 defeat to Kidderminster on Saturday.

Coming just a week after his take-over was sealed in a blaze of publicity, the crowd of 2,787 was almost 400 down on last season's corresponding fixture.

Batchelor, who has pledged to make City the most "unusual" team in the Football League and has promised a cultural change at Bootham Crescent, insisted he had no regrets about taking over the club.

But he admitted City now needed more people coming through the turnstiles if his vision for the club is to be realised.

Bachelor, who stood shoulder to shoulder with fans standing on the terraces of the David Longhurst Stand for much of Saturday's game, vowed: "York is going to remember it has got a football club.

"We have got a great deal of support and we have got the Supporters' Trust.

"What I want them to do and what I am going to do and what the players are going to do and what everybody at the club is going to do is we are going to get out in the city over the next two weeks and we will drag people through the door if we have to.

"I've watched the game from the Longhurst Stand and I have stood there with around 1,000 people, all of whom love this club. I am sure there are more people who are out there who we can get in.

"And we really, really need their help from now until and the end of the season. I want to create an atmosphere here that has been lacking for a long time."

Batchelor admitted he was "extremely disappointed" with Saturday's attendance.

"We have had seven or eight weeks of publicity and a load of hard work to take the club over and it is like everyone in York thinks this club is now safe," he said.

"It isn't safe unless we get 6,000 people through the door and I want everybody to get off their backsides and get in here.

"I don't care how we do it. If someone wants to tell me the solution to galvanising this city and making it want its football club as much as I want it to work then I am happy to listen to anybody.

"Everybody wants a football club but no-one can be bothered to do anything about it. It's apathy."

Despite his frustration, Batchelor insisted he was not regretting his decision to buy the club.

"Not at all. I love it. I absolutely love it and I wish everybody loved it as much as I loved it," he said.

Updated: 09:41 Monday, March 25, 2002