JOSH Law has admitted he felt his York City career was over before Sam Collins took over as caretaker manager at Bootham Crescent.

The 29-year-old utility man has played every minute of Collins’ temporary reign, having only managed two substitute outings under previous boss Martin Gray during the first five fixtures of the season.

In the meantime, other clubs enquired about Law’s availability but he did not want to compromise his family’s financial security, so is delighted to be back in the picture under ex-Hartlepool and Hull City defender Collins.

“It was pretty black and white – I wasn’t for Martin and you start to think about moving on,” Law confessed of his situation during the opening weeks of this campaign. “I had interest from other teams, but there was nothing that was quite right because it has to be right when you’ve got a young family.

“You can’t just leave a contract and go somewhere else to be worse off financially. That’s just being realistic at this level of football, but the change of manager has changed everything and shows the big impact things like that can have on a player.

“It was quite early in the season for Martin to leave, but maybe the board were looking at the results at the end of last season as well. You get a bit of a feel around the place that it might happen with the atmosphere on match days and such things.

“It’s still always a bit of a shock when it happens, but the way Sam wants to play football suits me so, hopefully, we can do well for him and go from there because I feel I can benefit York City now. We’re thinking about our games a lot and are all enjoying working on how we are playing so, the more we do that, the better chance we will have of being successful with it.”

Gray’s close-season target was the National League North title and, while the ninth-placed Minstermen currently lie 13 points off the impressive pace set by leaders Chorley, the former Motherwell and Oldham campaigner believes, with a game in hand, automatic promotion is still within reach.

“Chorley are flying and have won every game bar one draw, which is fair play to them, but we’re definitely not out of it yet and nobody’s panicking,” Law reasoned. “We’ve got to win games and keep picking up points and I believe we’ll be there or thereabouts, as I also can’t see Chorley keeping up that momentum, because it’s a ridiculous run.”

The Minstermen will gain a good gauge of their progress under Collins and championship credentials when they entertain the division’s other undefeated club Kidderminster this weekend.

City took one point from a possible six against the Aggborough side last term and also lost the FA Trophy tie between the two teams, with Law arguing that the Harriers were perhaps held in too high a regard.

“I thought they played really well against us every time we played them last season, but we maybe respected them too much and sat off them quite a lot, which allowed them to move the ball around too easily,” he ventured. “They’ve got good players and I’ve played against a few, as well as with Dan Bradley for Alfreton and he’s a really good player, so they can hurt you, but we are looking at ways to exploit their weaknesses as well.”

As an illustration of Law’s elevated status under Collins, he has replaced the previously-impressive Kallum Griffiths as the side’s chief set-play taker and he is now keen to help improve the club’s goal return from such situations.

“Playing in midfield, I’m that bit further up the field to take them either side, so it gives Kall’s legs a bit of a rest,” Law pointed out. “But I know the quality has to be high because he was delivering great dead-balls before.

“I’ve generally taken them whichever team I’ve been playing for, so I’m used to it and don’t mind it. We’ve also got some big lads in the side and we’ve been working a lot on set-pieces to try and score more from them because, although Joe Tait got a goal from one of Kall’s balls in at Ashton, we could have perhaps exploited his deliveries more.”