RICHARD Brodie’s decision to quit York City was his alone insisted manager Martin Foyle as the Minstermen prepared for life without their prolific striker against Rushden & Diamonds tomorrow.

The 37-goal striker last season moved to Crawley Town only three minutes before the close of the transfer window on Tuesday in a Conference record deal rumoured to be close to £275,000.

The Angel of the North claimed in The Press yesterday that he had been reluctant to leave the club to join City’s big-spending Blue Square Bet Premier rivals.

Foyle stressed that Brodie was a “fantastic lad” and pledged to continue to help the 23-year-old throughout his career. But he said the player was the “only one” who could decide to move to the Broadfield Stadium.

“It’s a very frustrating time at the moment,” Foyle said. “You look at the headlines in the paper and they sound so dramatic. If you have actually been in football most of your career then it is not rocket science.

“If a player signs a contract he wants to go, if he doesn’t sign a contract he doesn’t have to go. Richard is a fantastic lad and I love him to bits and he has been fantastic for me.

“He will be more than welcome back at York and I will keep in touch with him throughout his career. But he’s the one – and only Richard – not the agent, not Steve Evans, not me, can do anything about it.

“If he wants to sign for Crawley Town, he signs for Crawley Town. That’s the end of the story really. Every contract is down to the player. He has signed it. I wish him well. If he hadn’t have signed it and he had stayed at York City then fantastic because he was a big part of my plans. We would have moved on.

“There was no way, whatsoever, that we were trying to push the lad out and all the other lads will vouch for that. I don’t work that way. He was great for me in the 14 or 16 months I have been here. He has gone. Now I have got to try and find somebody else to fill the void and, hopefully, one or two others.

“At the end of the day, the chairman has given him permission to talk – which was the right thing to do – he then speaks to Crawley and, if he has agreed everything, he wants to sign for them.

“It’s so simple and everyone in football knows and everyone outside of football needs to know. He probably didn’t want to leave but felt that he had to leave.

“He hasn’t had a good start to the season, probably felt a bit down, and the challenge was there. After the stick he took on Monday down at Fleetwood – the crowd were telling him to get away – maybe that just tipped the scales. I can understand how footballers react, they react very quickly, but whether he has made the right decision only Richard will know.”

With George Purcell injured, City’s remaining two strikers – Michael Gash and Michael Rankine – have also had a difficult week having appeared in court to answer charges.

Gash pleaded guilty to affray, while Rankine denied affray but pleaded guilty to a lesser charge, following the incident at a city Subway sandwich shop more than a year ago.

They will be sentenced in October, and the length of time it has taken to be dealt with has frustrated the City boss.

When asked whether it had been unsettling for the players, Foyle added: “It’s got to be in the back of your mind a little bit.

“We have to turn the clock back 14 months for something which should have been sorted out over a year ago.

“How it has gone through court after court when bigger offences come up and they are sorted out within three months? It looks bad headlines and it looks like a lot of things aren’t right.

“They are not bad lads. They love being here, they want to be part of York City and I find it a little bit frustrating.

“But we have got to deal with it.

“I am going to keep their heads down a little bit and get them to concentrate on their football.

“If we go back to that, at Fleetwood the football was very, very poor. People didn’t do the jobs we had done on the training ground two days previously.

“We are going to bounce back, we are going to stick together.

“I think a lot of people are going to be throwing shots at us left, right and centre and it’s how we deal with it as a group.”

Meanwhile, City’s home Blue Square Bet Premier game against Darlington, originally scheduled for Tuesday, September 28, has been brought forward 24 hours to allow the game to be screened live by Premier Sports TV (kick off 7.45pm).