Restoring York City pride John Askey’s reward after returning Minstermen to the Conference with a 2-0 victory over Boston United Yorkshire News

The Minstermen won 2-0 with early and late goals from Lenell John-Lewis and Maz Kouhyar to win a sometimes tense final watched by 7448 fans.

With support like that on top of their Football League pedigree, York have always felt they shouldn’t be in the sixth tier, but it’s taken them a long time to earn the right to get out of it.

The relief as the crowd celebrated at the now inevitable invasion of the pitch was palpable.

“I know how much it means to this football club,” said Askey, who took over as caretaker coach in November. “Although I have never had any link with the club, I know how important it is to reach a level that makes the club proud again.”

York chairman Jason McGill has borne the brunt of the inevitable frustration when his team floundered while in the midst of a lengthy move to a new stadium that finally took place in January 2020, but Askey hastened to pay tribute. him for the role he played.

“We were lucky with some of the players that came in January. It was a moment where the football club could have told me: ‘You have to keep what you have’, but the football club supported me.” and the president stood by me when we needed it,” he stressed. “That turned it around.

“It’s not that I didn’t think we were good enough, it was just with the number of games that we had, I thought it was going to be very difficult because with some of the pitches that we played, it doesn’t matter how good you are.” it’s about fighting and competing.

“We had a period where I was still trying to figure it out, and luckily we managed to figure out how to go to certain places and get results.”

John-Lewis, who scored the only goal in the semi-final win at Brackley, had been painted as a fitness doubt for the game, but it was just a red herring.

“We always knew that from Monday onwards he would play and the good thing was that he got his goal early on and I think that kept him going.

“In the second half, he was practically playing with one leg, but we couldn’t get him or Clayts (Clayton Donaldson) out no matter how tired they looked because of their physical strength.

“I thought we started the game off well. These kinds of games are never going to be a big show, it’s the atmosphere that makes it.”

“We just managed it. We got the goal early on and the players showed in the second half that they were fit. It’s so nice, I can’t believe it happened, really.”

The only disappointment for York was losing left back Scott Barrow to a knee injury that seemed serious. He made it to the court for the postgame performance but needed crutches and a large brace on his right knee.

“We just hope it’s not as serious as it seemed because it’s been so good since I got here,” Askey said. “He has been fantastic in the last four or five minutes.

“I just hope he’s okay because he’s had a lot of injuries in his career that have kept him from playing higher.”