YORK City are promising to significantly improve the club's match day programme after admitting last season's effort was an 'embarrassment'.

City director Terry Doyle, a keen programme collector, has worked closely with commercial manager Peter Salter to improve the quality.

The improvements means the price of a programme will rise 20p to £2.20.

However, the club maintain the new price is in keeping with most clubs in Division Three and is mainly due to increased printing costs.

City will be producing special programmes for each of the club's pre-season friendlies at Bootham Crescent, against Sunderland (July 16), Leeds United (July 23), Scarborough (July 26) and Livingston (July 31).

In two of the pre-season programmes City intend to include vouchers which will guarantee priority in the event of big all ticket games later in the season.

Doyle said: "We are conscious of the past criticism the club has received regarding preference for tickets for all-ticket games.

"In our opinion, those fans who support us by attending pre-season games and buy a programme demonstrate they are City fans who deserve priority for games which are all ticket. We will be implementing this procedure for the forthcoming season."

He added: "As a keen programme collector myself, I was as embarrassed as anybody last season with the programme. Peter Salter and I have worked hard to ensure there is a considerable improvement this season to make the programme interesting, newsworthy and topical."

Last season's programme was overhauled by former John Batchelor at the start of last season but was widely criticised by supporters.

A number of traditional columns were initially scrapped only to be reintroduced later.

Updated: 10:32 Saturday, July 05, 2003