'For us, it's not an option to stop the league,' says York City boss Steve Watson

National League North and South division seasons are currently midway through a two-week hiatus following disputes over funding but the league has confirmed to York City and The Press separately that the period of suspension will end on Friday, February 5.

Chairman Jason McGill last week said that York would "fight and lobby to continue the season to completion”, and his sentiments were echoed by Watson today.

Among the concerns raised was the points-averaging method of 'points per game' by which last season was settled, and ultimately saw King's Lynn Town go up ahead of City.

But where last season finished with sides having played between 30 and 35 games (York had 34 under their belt), this season City have completed just 12.

"I'm lucky that I've got a chairman who wants to carry on," Watson said. "Once I'm told that, all that's left for me is to get the players as fit and ready as I can. Once I'm told, my job is simple.

"If (the season) is stopped or halted, it won't be from us.

"We'll be pleading our case to finish the league in whatever format that may be.

"Points per game, as a bitter a pill it was to swallow last season, the fact we were all 75 per cent of the way through the season, you can understand why it goes to that.

"You can't realistically do that when we've only played 12 games. We have to try and carry on.

"For us, it's not an option to stop the league.

"We want to play the same amount of games as everybody else, albeit shoehorned in to a lot tighter schedule than everybody else but we want to finish the league.

"We don't want to see another season go by where we haven't had our best chance and a real go of getting out of this division."

On Thursday morning, sporting director Dave Penney represented City at a Zoom meeting on "how the Government can make the best decisions to support the National League" with Labour leader Keir Starmer and other National League clubs.