YORK City co-chairman Matt Uggla will look to learn from the mistakes of his debut year at the helm of the football club.
A promising season ended on the final day, as York avoided relegation to the Vanarama National League North on simple goal difference, and City escaped relegation on the final day of the campaign for the second year running.
But with Minstermen boss Adam Hinshelwood acting quickly in the transfer window to bring in five new faces from the start, Uggla has identified the mistakes made by his side last campaign and is working to avoid similar errors in the upcoming campaign, after reflecting on a “really long season that didn’t go as planned by the president.
“For me it seems like an eternity, it’s been a really long year. I haven’t lost any hair, but I’ve definitely gotten some sleep throughout the year,” Uggla told the York Hospital Ball Podcast, who produced a great, exclusive interview on Saturday that can be found in full here.
“The measure of someone is that we are all human, we are going to make mistakes.
“Do you have enough to recognize the mistake, learn from it and correct it? I think I hope I can do it, last year was not a success in many ways, but I love this club with all my heart.
“The losses probably hurt me more than anyone in a pretty bad way, and at certain points in the season it was pretty exhausting.
“I think we’ve come out unscathed in terms of the division we play in, hopefully you can already see signs that things are starting to change and we’ll be a lot more sensible in what we’re doing, rather than being a bit more trigger happy and saying yes to everything.
“It’s a much more measured approach.
“Last year we weren’t even in the door at this point, so you can see how much business we’ve already done.
“I think we potentially missed the boat last year with a lot of free agents leaving clubs, our club had already been offered new contracts so we were left in a bit of a strange situation.
“The recruitment was extremely rushed, it was almost like throwing darts at a dart board blindly and saying we would take this guy and that guy, some of them have worked out very well.
“Most would agree that Dipo Akinyemi is a superstar for this level and is also a great person, and others have not performed as well.
“It was a real bit of roulette, but coming in, doing our business early and having a plan in place for what we want to do once the season is over will hopefully pay dividends.”
Plans for the 2024/25 Vanarama National League season are underway for York, and Uggla admitted that following City’s 2-0 win over Woking in mid-April, he was confident he could begin preparing for another season in the fifth level, rather than suffer relegation.
York City began planning for next season after beating Woking 2-0. (Image: Tom Poole)
The wheels have already started turning, with five signings through the door and one more expected this week, and City are now using a more measured approach to attract potential transfer targets.
Uggla told the York Hospital Ball: “It was strange, because it took us a while to understand which division we were going to be in.
“Once things started to clear up, and I know it was the last day we stayed up, but I think internally we felt that after the Woking game it would have been very difficult for us (to go down), and it would have been very, very unfortunate.
“Probably after that we started to move forward with our approach to things, doing our homework and throughout the year already having lists.
“It was just about doing those final bits, which I don’t think we did last year, but finding out the personalities of the players.
“Many times last year we had only one goal where we had to bring in that player, it made us desperate and that showed by overpaying not only in fee but also in salaries, but this time if our main goal doesn’t work . or if they’re being silly, the agent is being silly, then he’s fine, see you later, number two, three or four. We would be happy with the four of them.
Uggla would also explain his cryptic social media message posted in January, which read: “It’s going to plan. I feel like January could be the most important month we as a club have had in a long time and help us really move forward.” to the next level.”
It’s going according to plan. I feel like January could be the most important month we’ve had as a club in a long time and help us get to the next level. I really want to thank everyone for making me and my family feel so welcome and supported which means a lot. We have met so many good
– Matt Uggla (@matt_uggla) December 31, 2023
City’s chairman confirmed that the club had been close to bringing in an eye-catching name alongside Billy Chadwick, who was the only addition in January.
“I’m not going to lie, I completely forgot about January, but there was a deal close that would have been really big.
“For some reason it didn’t work out, that’s probably what I was referring to, but other than that, I don’t think we were looking too much to add other than Billy.
“I think you’ve seen it so far this summer as well, the players are having ridiculously high demands, but as a club we have to establish non-negotiable elements and say ‘look, this is what we pay for this’ and ‘this’ is what that we pay for that’.
“I value that structure no matter what, if we can do it, hopefully, over time, that reputation will be restored and people will become more realistic.”
As part of York’s new recruitment structure, Uggla also recalled the impact of David Stockdale, head of recruitment, and Matt Lever, recruitment analyst, as well as why he thought the two positions didn’t quite work out for the football club. . .
David Stockdale has left his role as Head of Recruitment. (Image: Tom Poole)
The duo came out last month after less than a year in their roles.
Uggla explained: “The idea with those guys was to have a system in place to help the manager, and I think they both did a good job, but they were new to their roles.
“Maybe that didn’t help, but it is what it is, they’ve moved on and we wish them both the best.”
With the 2023/24 season now over, Uggla looked back on his finest moment of the season and paid tribute to Hinshelwood after City’s response to a cowardly 6-1 defeat to Altrincham.
A run of form helped York finally get over the line to confirm their safety and position in next season’s National League, with that important win over Woking leaving the Minstermen almost safe heading into the final day of the campaign.
Uggla told the York Hospital Ball: “I think I looked, and maybe it was a moment like the phoenix rising from the ashes, but everyone watching and maybe themselves had written the team off and doomed us to fall.
“There was a lot of negativity towards Adam, which I know really affected him because we talk often, so I know it really affected him.
“Seeing him spin that gives me tingles just thinking about it, it was special and I don’t think it could have happened to a better man.
“Seeing that and seeing them all turn around, as they went from that Altrincham game to the last game of the season (a 1-0 loss to Solihull Moors, with York surviving on goal difference), was quite surreal. “
