FOR the past 15 months York City fans, players, officials have been on the rack.

Then, just as the torture looked about to end, the morale-stretching wheels of anguish were ratcheted up still further.

Yesterday's events have to go down as some of the most perplexing and certainly frustrating in the club's entire history.

The critical creditors' meeting which sought to approve a Company Voluntary Arrangement whereby the club's stack of creditors were asked to accept either nought or a fraction of what they were due, seemed so simple.

Either they voted for the Supporters' Trust proposal to go into CVA and carry on the club, or they rejected it and York City FC would then go down the tubes. Yea or nay. White or black. One or t'other.

At least the latter scenario has not materialised, City have not yet been pronounced dead.

But what happened instead? The club's long-suffering faithful now have yet another week of torment to endure before the precise future of the Minstermen is finally known.

The principal sticking-point is the cash owed to the Inland Revenue. After a lengthy adjournment to discuss a new deal, it was reported to the Evening Press by one source that an acceptable agreement had been 'thrashed out'.

But there appears to have been a sudden change of heart by the tax authorities, chucking the whole process into doubt, delay and downright despair.

While the taxmen ponder what would be acceptable, the club - smack bang in the middle of a redoubtable promotion drive from the Third Division - faces the not inconsiderable problem of how to fund itself during this coming week.

City are due at Bristol Rovers tonight followed by a trip to Wrexham on Saturday. So that means no home game at which to generate critical revenue. No chance of yet another salvation-lined bucket collection.

This could put an even greater burden on the Supporters' Trust, who have already baled out the club to the tune of £152,000 as well as amassing the funds it needs to enable it to take up the City reins.

Surely they cannot be called upon to provide yet more money. For that cash would have to be diverted from its fund to buy the club thereby reducing its capacity to ultimately take command. It's a case of not only robbing Peter, but bloody Paul as well so as to pay the taxman.

What then of the administrators Jacksons Jolliffe Cork? They have been aware for many days of the implications of a CVA, so surely they should have been more appraised of just what the tax authorities would demand as settlement of their debt.

And does the delay now mean that the costs of administration, reported at yesterday's meeting to reach as much as £200,000, will increase still further?

It's as if for the past 15 months there has been a Torquemada-type queue twisting the knife into York City - Bootham Crescent Holdings, John Batchelor, administrators, taxman. Streuth, what a torture.

A MASSIVE void now exists in British athletics after the retirement of hurdler supreme Colin Jackson.

The Welsh flier's dazzling 17-year career came to a halt as Jackson sadly finished out of the medal frame he so usually graces at the World Indoor Championships in Birmingham.

While other upcoming talents have stepped into the track shoes of the likes of Daley Thompson, Linford Christie and Sally Gunnell, Jackson is, in the words of Christie, 'irreplaceable'. There is no-one coming up on the rails to extend the tradition of high-class hurdling established by Jackson in a career in which he captured 25 major championship medals. The admirable Jackson is going to be the hardest act of all to follow.

Updated: 10:36 Tuesday, March 18, 2003