New manager Neil Thompson has brought more than just a breath of fresh air to York City during his first week in charge.

A cyclone would have had less effect than the veteran defender detailed with the duty of delivering a swift ascent from the lower reaches of domestic professional football in which City are now lodged.

He has tackled the assignment with all the ferocity he employs when approaching a free-kick anywhere within 35 yards of an adversaries' net.

Whoosh. Out go a posse of players, crowd favourites and crowd pleasers - given best wishes, but informed 'there's no room for sentiment'.

Whoosh. Fresh deals are offered to young players, told in tones bearing a certain ominous ring that 'the ball is in their court'.

Whoosh. In comes a conditioning coach and a pledge to step up fitness 'because you then make better decisions on the pitch'.Whoosh.

Decision-making does not worry the new boss at Bootham Crescent. Nor does the multi-faceted task of football management once he relished the tang of it during his 11 matches in caretaker charge after the dismissal of Alan Little.

It was City's version of the Keegan factor that convinced Thompson this indeed was the route he wanted his roller-coaster career to next take.

He recalled: "The first two weeks were mad. But I can honestly say that after the first week, I liked it.

"I found I was fairly comfortable with the decisions that came with the job. It's not just the playing side, it's everything and everyone to deal with. But that time gave me an insight and it's what I want to do."

The Kevin Keegan comparison increases. Thompson's creed about the game is uncannily similar to that which drove the present national coach to unprecedented heights as a player.

A staunch advocate of maximising whatever talent you have at your disposal, Thompson ventured: "Players have got to realise this a great living.

"If you can look back and say you have done the best with what you have got then you can be satisfied. But if you feel you can't do that and have failed to reach the heights then you have only yourself to blame.

"You've got to make the best of what you have got. You have to play to your strengths and have got to improve your weaknesses."

That's the tack he and his new management team of Adie Shaw and Bobby Mimms will arm themselves with into the new campaign.

The most alarming weakness of all for Thompson, especially as a defender who saw strapping service with Scarborough, Ipswich and Barnsley before arriving at Bootham Crescent, was the flood of goals that undermined the past season.

The concession of 80 goals, the worst in the Nationwide League save for Bristol City, ensured that from 19 of their 46 fixtures the Minstermen gathered a meagre four points.

Railed the manager: "That's the crux of the matter. That's Sunday league football."

Now he said the paramount personnel change was introducing a 'spine', a harder edge as Division Three beckons. "We still want to play football, but have got to have a physical side to our play. We have got to combat that. We cannot get bullied around in that division."

Demotion and its consequences represented a major disappointment for Thompson. It had been a 'real downer...hurting the most on Sunday' sighed Thompson, adding how his sterling efforts and that of the players in his 11-game caretaker reign proved 'too little, too late'.

He, however, is a stirring example of rallying from setbacks, remembering how he had four times been given free transfers.

Of his first as a teenager at Nottingham Forest he recalled: "It's a body-blow, a massive blow. You feel as if you're world has caved in. But it's how you bounce back."

The then teenager showed eminent character in linking up with Hull City and, after being released there, carving out a part-time career at Scarborough. On match-days he was a fearsome, thunder-booted wing-back. Away from the arena he was a sales rep with both a brewery and also a nappy products firm.

Full-time terms came when Scarborough soared into the Football League as the first Conference champions. That rise set Thompson on to a professional path of even greater accomplishment at Ipswich Town and Barnsley, where he also shared in promotion success at the highest level.

That upwardly mobile habit underpins his next goal. "My immediate ambition is to get this club back into the Second Division. I would like to do that next season. We are not kidding ourselves. It's going to be tough," he said.

"But it won't be for lack of effort. We are determined to build the team in the summer and mould them to take up the challenge. We will be doing everything we possibly can to get us back into the Second Division."

Thompson still revels in the memory of ascents into a higher league. "The thing with promotion is, it's a group of players who are the right people. And that produces such camaraderie. It's about having that desire. Everyone needs that will. It breeds through the club.

"But it's also about hard work, about how you live on and off the field and listening to people. Individuals can get a team going, but you've still got to play as a team. We have played too often as individuals. We have been fragmented.

"Next year, if we are organised then we have a real good chance to bounce back."

The tremors of the new are still echoing.

Neil Thompson Factfile

Born: Beverley, October 2, 1963

Career: Nottingham Forest (apprentice), Hull City (November 1981), Scarborough (August 1983), Ipswich Town (£135,000 June 1989), Barnsley (June 1996), Oldham Athletic (loan December 1996 - February 1997), York City (April 1998, caretaker player-manager March 1999, player-manager May 1999).

Football League record: Hull City 31 appearances, 0 goals; Scarborough 87 app, 15g; Ipswich Town 206 app, 19g; Barnsley 27 app, 5g; Oldham Athletic 8 app, 0g, York City 34, 8g. Total: 393, 47g.

Honours: 4 England semi-professional international caps 1987; GM Vauxhall Conference Championship medal 1986-87; FA XI representative; PFA Division Four select team; Second Division Championship medal 1991-92; Division Two promotion 1996-97.

Record as City player-manager: P11 W4 D2 L5 F14 A19 Pts14.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.