The year got off to a frosty but positive start as Dame Vera Lynn backed our campaign for a Women's War Memorial.

Two men dived in to the River Foss and saved a woman who had plunged into the icy water from Foss Bridge. Parts of both York's rivers were frozen in arctic temperatures.

The council said York Barbican Centre could be demolished when it sold off the site.

Just a day after a Supporters Club had been launched with a pledge to save the club, it was revealed that York City's Bootham Crescent ground would be sold at the end of the season - unless a buyer could be found.

City later lost to Premiership club Fulham in the FA Cup. Fulham chairman Mohammed Al Fayed donated his share of the receipts to the trust.

Gary Hart was jailed for five years for causing the death of ten people in the Great Heck rail disaster.

The public inquiry into the proposed Coppergate Riverside development began. It was expected to last three weeks. The Gimcrack was the latest York pub to be threatened with closure.

In London, a man was charged with murdering a Korean student whose body was found in a suitcase at Askham Richard in York.

A woman was killed by masonry which fell from All Saints Church in Pavement, York.

Visitors to the Minster could be asked to pay in future, the Dean and Chapter suggested.

Nationally, rail strikes brought many services to a halt. Chancellor Gordon Brown and his wife Sarah mourned the loss of their ten-day-old baby daughter Jennifer Jane.

Prince Charles sent his younger son Harry to a drugs rehabilitation clinic after he admitted to regularly smoking cannabis.

And the euro had a smooth launch in 12 European countries.