“IT was probably the best week of my life.”

Jamie Reed was part of that York City squad who famously lifted the Isuzu FA Trophy and gained promotion back to the English Football League in the space of eight days, with the striker playing a vital role in an incredible season for both the football club, and the City of York.

Reed might not be able to remember too much of the actual events after celebrating back-to-back successes with back-to-back trips to Spain, but asserted his honour at being involved with the football club, making 74 appearances and scoring 25 goals whilst representing York.

It will be a memory that Reed will one day tell his grandchildren, in the first of a three part chat between the Press and the former York striker.

“It’s a weird one actually, my memory is very hazy, not because of time but just because of the sheer amount of alcohol we had in the days afterwards!

“Strangely enough we were actually looking at Ibiza plans for the end of the season, and we planned it for after the play-off final, just in case.

“After we won that, the chairman paid for us to go to Benidorm, so we did three days in Benidorm, 24 hours at home and then went straight out to Ibiza!

“It was pretty much a party for about eight or nine days, so my memory is quite hazy.

“It was amazing, it was something at the time I remembered thinking to myself that one day I would tell my grandkids about this.

“I’ve got my shirt framed from the games, that’s hanging up on the stairs which you can’t miss when you walk up and down my stairs.”

Reed looks back upon City’s week of success with great fondness, describing it as the best week of his life, and recently took time to re-watch the entirety of the Vanarama National League play-off final.

“It was probably the best week of my life, just don’t tell my wife and kids that!

“From a personal point of view it probably was, it was the best couple of weeks of my life.

“There were things that I wish had went better, for instance I wish that I had played more in the games, I actually watched the whole play-off final a couple of weeks ago.

“I’d never watched it back, I’d seen the highlights but I’d never watched it back, I never thought about my own performance and how I did in that game.

“I actually watched it and looked at the 20 odd minutes that I played, and it was so hazy because I can’t remember any of it.

“It was such an amazing time, but the actual football part of it I cannot remember.

“I remember driving in on the bus, I remember getting changed in my seat in the changing rooms, but I can’t remember warming up or even coming on.

“With the FA Trophy it was very much the case where the focus was straight back onto it next week, we had a little party on the Sunday which was really laid back because nobody really had a drink, and we were back in training on the Monday and Tuesday before going back down there on the Thursday, ready to go again.

“The focus from the Trophy final was straight onto the next game, getting ready to play against Luton and it was a tough one. I don’t remember much of the football side.”

It was a brilliant time for the football club, and even so for the players, with Reed describing the squad as a ‘close-knit group’.

Reed was bunked up with roommate Jamal Fyfield, and admitted that Paddy McLaughlin, the one player from that squad to still be with City, was in fact his daughter’s favourite York player.

“The general mood was pretty good all season to be honest, there was a stutter at times when the fans got on our backs, certainly in the earlier stages.

“We started off really well and then went sloppy, then we just really kicked on from the middle to the end of the season.

“There was quite a few times where we’d go and play a couple of away games in a week, so we’d all stay down there, I think it was Bath and then Newport.

“We ended up staying from the Saturday through to the Tuesday, it just brought everyone so much closer together.

“We stayed down, so were constantly on a bus or in a hotel, it was a little bit like a World Cup or the European Championships, where the lads are together that much that you get that close-knit feel.

“It was a very close-knit group, we all still get along now and speak together, but probably not as much as we’d all like.

“If we were all stuck in a room right now we’d all be buzzing for old times sake, I’d love to have a catch-up.

“I lived with Jamal (Fyfield), I still speak to Jamal a lot now.

“Paddy (McLaughlin), Blairy (Matty Blair), Ash (Chambers), it was a tough one because we were all so close.

"Inghy (Michael Ingham) was the life and soul of the party, Smudge (Chris Smith) bossing us all around, (Scott) Kerr as well, it was such a good group.

“It’d be hard to pick anyone out, but the fact I lived with Jamal made us very close, I still speak to Paddy quite a lot with him being at the club so when I go to games, he’s my daughter’s favourite player, York player anyway, closely behind Darwin Nunez.

“It was such a good group, it’d be hard to pick anyone out in particular other than the fact that I lived with Jamal.”