ALMOST four decades of guiding youngsters through to York City stardom has ended prematurely for Colin Sanderson as he tells deputy sports editor TONY KELLY.

HOSPITALISED for a total of eight weeks in a battle against bladder cancer, Colin Sanderson’s recovery was significantly swelled by his love of York City FC.

But that is hardly surprising considering how York born and bred Sanderson has devoted nigh on 38 years to nurturing talent from under-nine-year-olds through to fully fledged City first-teamers.

Coincidentally, the side currently fighting against the threat of losing their cherished Football League status, includes one of his former protégés and one of his latest.

Richard Cresswell, now in the twilight of a career that began at Bootham Crescent amid the City centre of excellence in which Sanderson has held a pivotal role, made his second debut for City with his outing on-loan from Sheffield United in the 2-1 defeat at Torquay United.

The 35-year-old Cresswell was joined at Plainmoor after half-time by 19-year-old midfielder Tom Platt, the freshest off the City production line to bloom at the Crescent under the astute tuition of the 71-year-old Sanderson.

Huntington-based Sanderson is convinced the experience and guile of Cresswell, plus the youth and promise of Platt, will provide City manager Nigel Worthington’s charges with the necessary combination to KO relegation dread.

“I am certain the club will stay up in the Football League. They will do it,” declared Sanderson, who is on the long road to recovery from major surgery at both York Hospital and St James Hospital in Leeds.

“Signing someone like Crezza, who was one of the youngsters I helped to coach when he first came to the club, is a big boost.

“He will bang in goals and he has that fighting spirit which is needed now.

“And we have another one of my lads Tom Platt in there. He’s a good lad with a great physique and a presence for a young midfielder. I’m certain those two will help to keep City in the League.”

Sanderson would relish nothing better than to be back in the thick of it all at the Crescent providing his support and still helping the current youngsters among the under-nine and under-ten squads he has coached for decades.

Said Sanderson’s wife Pat: “That dream of getting back to his kids at York City helped to get him through all those weeks in hospital. It brought him on, I’m sure.”

However, both he and his wife realised his recovery would not allow him back to his phenomenal youth work, and so with a huge sense of regret, Sanderson penned his resignation letter to the club last week.

“That was such a hard thing for me to do. It was a very sad moment but it had to be done as I just don’t have the strength any more,” he sighed.

Sanderson’s sadness was eased somewhat by so many goodwill messages from his fellow coaches and youngsters, two of whom presented him with a huge supply of sweets fittingly encased in a football-boot box.

He was also thrilled by a lavish letter of thanks from former youth team coach Steve Torpey, upgraded by Worthington to first-team coach. Torpey thanked Sanderson for the “thousands of hours of hard work and dedication” he had put into the club for 38 years.

As well as his canny coaching, Sanderson has also helped to co-ordinate the ball-boys’ teams on Bootham Crescent match days.

For Sanderson, no mean shakes himself as a speedy, twinkle-toed winger back in his youth with York Railway Institute, Heslington, York City Intermediates and occasionally City’s reserves, his City involvement has never been a chore. It has always been a labour of love, fuelled by devotion to a club “he could never be dragged away from”.

And just look at the players he has helped to develop from the days when he first took charge of the club’s then fledgling intermediates side.

Legends of the Minstermen, some making equally significant impacts at other clubs, number the likes of Joe Neenan, Steve Senior, John Byrne, Gary Ford, Andy Leaning, Iain Dunn, Steve Tutill, Steve Bushell, and the aforementioned Cresswell and Platt, the latter the latest off the Bootham Crescent block.

He also revelled in having three players currently in the Youth Training Scheme ranks at the club – Chris Banks, Niall Tilsley and James Green.

“It’s what I am going to miss the most – working with the kids from the age of under-nine and under-ten and seeing how they develop through the club,” he said.

“You get such a lift when you see them take on board what you are trying to tell them.

“I’m always honest with the kids and tell them that I will give them five weeks and if they improve in that time then I’ll keep them on.

“If not, then I tell them that I’ll have to let them go, but I always add that I’ll keep an eye on them as some lads are late developers. That’s what you have got to always take into account with youngsters.”

And he was delighted to recall how so many of his fledgling performers were said by their parents to have proved more respectful, responsible, and in some cases, tidy after coming under his wing.

There’s a distinct and deserving Sanderson pride too in how – against menacing odds – City’s centre of excellence venture continued to exist despite having no funds to work with from the club several years into the demotion from the Football League.

“We kept it going – the coaches, the lads, the parents,” recalled Sanderson. “We raised the funds ourselves and it was only by doing that that we were allowed to still continue and play Football League teams, even though we were in the Conference.

“And it’s when you look at the work of good people like John Stockton and Garry Naylor, and others over many years that you realise if it wasn’t for them, then York City would not have an academy now.”

Modestly, Sanderson omitted his own name from that worthy list of energetic and enterprising endeavour. But he will always remain at the core of what has kept City’s heart beating for close on 40 years.


Col’s chief stars

OF all the managers he has known at Bootham Crescent, Colin Sanderson named three as his star bosses.

The first was Denis Smith in tandem with Viv Busby, who brought unparalleled championship success in the mid-1980s.

He then cited John Ward and in third place was Alan Little, Ward’s successor, who Sanderson said: “Worked his socks off”.

“They all had great success at the club,” said Sanderson, who also rated Gary Mills before his sacking last month.

As for new man Nigel Worthington, Sanderson added: “He’s got the experience and the contacts in the game to bring in players to get us out of relegation trouble.”