HIGHLY-RATED head coach James Ford insists he wants to stay at York City Knights and lead them into the Championship – but issued a thinly veiled warning that “he won’t be around for ever”.

Ford said after Saturday’s 62-10 loss in Toulouse, when the Knights had only 12 players for the League One play-off semi-final, that that match must “signal some kind of intervention and a solution somewhere” for a club in crisis off the field.

There remains uncertainty over whether the team will exist next year, never mind where they will play. Chairman John Guildford put the club up for the sale during a troubled Super 8s section of the season, claiming City of York Council’s community stadium project and the groundshare at York City made it unsustainable.

Ford - who has been linked with jobs at Keighley, Sheffield, Featherstone and Wakefield in recent weeks - says he would love to stay as boss but has demanded a quick resolution to off-field matters “before it’s too late”.

“I want to be able to coach a team on a level playing field with everyone else,” said the 33-year-old, having endured two years of off-field strife since taking over at the Knights on their departure from their old Huntington Stadium home.

“We’ve done pretty well this year despite being severely hindered at every corner.

“I don’t know what’s happening in terms of this club next year. I would love to be head coach. I’m still young, I’m still learning, and I genuinely believe I can take this team forward some distance. I just want an opportunity to do that without being hampered.

“I have personal ambitions as well. These players are wonderful people and I’m loyal to these people and to this club and the supporters, but I have ambitions myself and I’m not going to be here for ever.

“We have a great opportunity together to move this club forward before it’s too late.

“If this club has ambition of kicking on to becoming a Featherstone or a Leigh or a Bradford, we need to do it now.

“I’m more than willing to give more years to it. I love it here and the supporters and people here are great. I don’t want to leave without taking the club forward.

“I owe it to these people who have given me the opportunity to coach and have backed me. The supporters have been great to me and I want to repay them.”