YORK City boss Russ Wilcox reckons the knowledge that a brand new stadium is on the horizon can act as an extra spur during the first team's battle to stay in the Football League.

The council gave the Monks Cross community stadium project the green light today in a meeting that was attended by Wilcox, his backroom staff, the first-team squad and junior side.

City are due to play their last campaign at Bootham Crescent next term before relocating for the start of 2016/17 with Wilcox saying: "I think the realism about the need to stay up has always been there but the prospect of moving into a new stadium as a Football League club should add to that incentive.

"Everything is in place now off the pitch and it's down to us to make sure we survive and push forward next season. All the players, management staff, academy coaches and youth-team players went to the meeting because we are all united behind the project.

"There's been a lot of hard work put into the process to get this go ahead, particularly from our board members and everyone has presented the case for a new stadium really well, so I am delighted it has been passed through."