FORMER York City captain Billy Rudd sent his best wishes as the modern-day Minstermen set out to equal a 42-year-old club record at Canvey Island this afternoon.

Billy McEwan's men were bidding for a seventh successive league win in Essex today and, if successful, they would become the first City team to achieve such a sequence since Rudd skippered the 1964/65 side to an identical run.

Manchester-born Rudd, now 64, admitted he is proud the record has endured four decades but has given his blessing to the class of 2005/2006.

He said: "I've noticed that they have been on a run in the Conference and records are there to be broken. It is nice that the record has lasted this long but I am pleased for the present people that they could equal it. It should also mean a decent home gate against Accrington in the next game if they did."

Rudd played at inside forward for Tom Lockie's side which went on to gain promotion from Division Four after their record-breaking run from Hallowe'en to Boxing Day in 1964.

He only missed three league games for City in four-and-a-half years with the club, making 212 appearances and scoring 31 goals in the prime of a career that began as an amateur at Manchester United.

Rudd had earlier played alongside future England World Cup winner Nobby Stiles for Manchester and Lancashire Boys but did not make the grade at Old Trafford. Following an unsuccessful trial at Arsenal and a spell with New York All Stars, he arrived at Bootham Crescent, where his Uncle Jimmy had plied his trade 13 years earlier.

He later played for Grimsby, Rochdale and Bury, where he still lives and runs his own decorating and joinery business although he is winding down towards retirement.

Rudd still remembers the record-breaking times at City with fondness and recalls the effect it had on team morale.

He said: "They say football has changed but one thing that hasn't is if you go on a run the confidence keeps getting higher and higher. You go out on to the pitch a lot more relaxed and getting beaten does not enter your thoughts.

"I remember that we won ten out of 11 matches at that time and Tom Lockie wasn't happy when we drew 1-1 at Chesterfield. We had beaten them 7-1 in the previous match and everybody was expecting us to get at least six in the next game but it was over Christmas and only two days after the first fixture."

When asked to name the key players during that era, Paul Aimson, Barry Jackson, Derek Weddle, Andy Provan and Dennis Walker all receive honourable mentions but Rudd reserves his biggest praise for a club legend who was entering the twilight of his career in the mid-60s, having been a star in the Happy Wanderers' team that had marched to the FA Cup semi-finals ten years earlier.

"Norman Wilkinson was my favourite," Rudd said.

"He was only a part-time player but he was the best finisher with his head that I ever played with. He was tremendous in the air."

Wilkinson only played four games in the season following City's promotion and the club suffered a swift return to the League's basement after finishing bottom of the old Third Division.

The unhappy season also marked the end of Rudd's Minstermen career and he believes the club were wrong not to strengthen the team after promotion, saying: "If they had gone and bought a couple of players when we went up we would probably have gone on to better things.

"We had the same problems at Rochdale when I was captain there and we went up as the last team to do so in the club's history in 1974."

Rudd last visited KitKat Crescent ten years ago but admitted he would like to make another return soon.

He still visits the area to see old friends and his former landlady and also runs holiday trips from Bury to Ampleforth College every year.

Rudd said: "I don't have any connections with the club now and it ended a bit sour there but, before then, I had five happy seasons and my two sons were born in York."

Updated: 11:46 Saturday, March 18, 2006