STEVE Watson has admitted that York City probably won’t be in the market for his troubled old club’s out-of-contract gems this summer.

Gateshead’s highly-rated, under-23 quartet of Jon Mellish, Robbie Tinkler, Tom White and Greg Olley would have all been on Watson’s radar as he looks to strengthen his squad for the 2019/20 campaign.

But, despite dreadful turmoil at the club with players only paid their March salaries last night, Watson feels City will now be priced out of the market for any Heed players seeking a more stable future.

The former Newcastle defender left Gateshead in January having assembled a squad on a shoestring budget that has mounted an unlikely challenge for promotion to the Football League.

During a similarly volatile period last summer, the Minstermen persuaded Gateshead quartet Jordan Burrow, Macaulay Langstaff, Wes York and Russ Penn to drop down a division but Watson doesn’t anticipate his current club benefiting from his former side’s plight 12 months on.

“None of the players are contracted there beyond the end of the season, so what’s happening would make it easier to get them in from that respect and, if I’m being honest, I would have gone in for five or six of them,” Watson told The Press. “But they have done that well this season that I just don’t think it will be possible, as I expect they will have a lot better and higher options now.

“It might have been easier if it was a choice between Gateshead and York or even Hartlepool because they might have thought they owed me and (assistant-manager) Micky (Cummins) a little bit having brought them through. But it will be very difficult to get the likes of Mellish, Tinkler, White and Olley now, especially with their England C call-ups and the way Gateshead play.

“They might be getting Football League offers now and offers from top teams in the National League, which we wouldn’t be able to compete with. The players I wanted to come that I thought there would be a good chance of getting, we could have certainly built a team around, particularly Tinkler, who is a born leader and can play in three different positions.

“I’d have also tried to get Fraser Kerr, but he’s gone to Hartlepool, so we will be a victim of the players’ success now.”

In addition to the senior squad, Gateshead’s under-19 players were not paid their February or March wages until last night and only received their January salary last month.

The kit is also currently being washed by fans due to an unpaid £1,000 laundrette bill and supporters are preparing pre-match meals.

Gateshead Council won’t allow the team to train at their International Stadium home ground either and Watson confessed that he has monitored the situation from North Yorkshire with sadness.

“The budget at Gateshead was under £400,000, so the players aren’t on much money anyway and none of them will have made any money in football apart from Mike Williamson probably,” the City boss pointed out. “None of them will be able to afford not being paid and a couple have got young kids, so I hate it when this kind of thing happens.”

Gateshead are currently controlled by chairman Ranjan Vargese and financial advisor Joe Cala, with the players issuing a statement this week urging the club to be sold to interested former Rochdale owner Chris Dunphy.

Declaring that he had his own reservations about the controversial owners, Watson added: “The club was sold to the first person that came in, because the previous chairman was desperate to get out, whereas if he had waited a little bit it might have worked out a bit better.”

CITY’S Supporters’ Trust will be staging their Beer Tasting & Naming Evening at York Brewery in Toft Green this evening from 6pm.

There will be a full bar and music until late in the evening and everyone attending will get the chance to vote for their favourite beer and name from more than 100 that have been entered to decide what a limited-edition York Brewery ale will be called to celebrate 87 years at Bootham Crescent.

It will then go on sale in crates of 12 next month.