YORK City owner Jason McGill has confessed the 2009/10 season has already surpassed his expectations.

The Malton-based businessman felt a top-ten place was within the club’s grasp after an awful 2008/9 campaign, but admitted that reaching the Blue Square Premier play-off final has proven a huge boost for the board.

Now, McGill is hoping the wide Wembley pitch can offer Martin Foyle’s team the perfect setting in which to overcome opponents Oxford United and end the club’s six-year absence from the Football League.

He said: “Speaking to Martin prior to the season starting, we thought we would be a top-ten team with the players we were able to attract.

“It’s just been a fantastic reward to get into the play-offs and it looked like we almost had a shout for automatic promotion at one point.

“We have played very well tactically and defensively but, on the occasions that we have been allowed to play football, we have really shown what we can do when we get the ball on the ground.

“Hopefully, the pitch at Wembley will allow us to do both because I thought the way we played over two legs against Luton was a lesson for anybody really.”

McGill believes the key to this season’s success has been the togetherness of the squad, as well as a shift towards broadening the club’s horizons in terms of player recruitment.

He feels that housing together new signings from far-flung corners of the country has also helped in the process of team bonding.

“When you look back at the last time we reached the play-offs, we had key individuals like Clayton Donaldson and Neal Bishop in 2007, but I think we have greater strength in depth all around the pitch now and more consistency throughout the squad,” he said.

“The biggest thing that strikes me about this group of players, though, is the great team spirit. In the past, we tried to recruit players that lived within an hour-and-a-half’s drive from York, which was fine but we were limiting our options.

“Last summer we decided to cast the net further to attract players from different areas. We didn’t want them holed up in lonely flats and the idea of a five-bedroom house so players can move in together has been a real success.

“I think 11 or 12 players now live in York and that has helped create a lot of camaraderie.”

Having suffered relegation from the Football League, two brushes with a drop into semi-professional football, an unsuccessful play-off challenge and an FA Trophy final defeat during his time in the Bootham Crescent boardroom, McGill is understandably on tenterhooks going into Sunday’s crucial encounter.

That anxiety has not been helped by the 13-day wait between the completion of City’s semi-final victory over Luton and the Wembley clash.

About coping with the nerves and enormity of the occasion, McGill added: “You go through your normal life and try to focus on work and your family because you don’t want to talk about the game too much.

“If you do, you can’t ignore the potentially monumental rewards in terms of finance and prestige and that’s when the butterflies kick in.”

Relations between City and their Oxford counterparts have always been strong off the field with McGill and his family always making sure they travel to the Kassam Stadium bearing gifts of Harrogate tea, Yorkshire curd tarts and honey from a lavender farm in Terrington.

The gesture has also been reciprocated in the past but the City chairman will be hoping any presents for his club this weekend are not dished out on the hallowed turf.

He revealed: “We have a really good relationship with Oxford and used to take a Yorkshire goody bag down there for their previous chairman Nick Merry and his mother. He would also come up here with bunches of flowers which was really appreciated.

“I will never forget when he walked in the boardroom and said ‘This is a proper football club’ either.

“There is a mutual respect between the two sets of directors, as there is between the two managers.

“Oxford have a really good team and a great infrastructure that is set up to be a Football League club, like ourselves.

“They get bigger gates and have greater financial clout but so did Luton and the game’s not played in the boardroom, it’s played on the pitch.

“It will all boil down to what happens on the day. It’s a one-off cup game in which anything can happen.

“There are people at Oxford who we would like to see doing well but I would settle for them going up in 2011 rather than 2010.”