Michael Morton to continue as York City manager for 2023/24

York City Football Club are delighted to confirm that Michael Morton will continue in the role of first-team manager

Morton was tasked with keeping the club in the Vanarama National League after poor form in January had seen the side dragged into a relegation battle, and he succeeded in doing so having masterminded impressive wins against Bromley, Barnet, and Chesterfield along the way.

After the final day draw away to second place Notts County ensured the Minstermen would finish three points clear of the relegation zone, York-born Morton will be given the opportunity to lead the club into the 2023/24 season.

Having already started work on preparing for the new campaign with player retentions, Morton will have the chance to build his squad and style over preseason to compete in the National League in 2023/24.

On leading his hometown club on a permanent basis, Morton said: “I think it’s going to be a good challenge. Nothing really changes in terms of how we finished the season, I think it’s all of us moving in the right direction and trying to do the right things for the club.

It’s a real honour for myself to keep managing the club and keep trying to move it forward. It’s not going to be an easy challenge because there’s still a lot of stuff that we need to put into place, but everybody behind the scenes is working hard to put these foundations in place and to help the team be successful. I’m really looking forward to it.”

On being given the chance to add his own stamp on the side over preseason, Morton added: “The biggest thing you’ll see is a different style of play, but ultimately we won’t move away from the main objective of winning the games.

We can go and play some really good football and lose games, so what we need to do is get that balance right of playing the right brand of football while achieving three points.

I’ve put a recruitment plan together for the club, we’ve been working hard to see which calibre of players we can bring in. We know that we haven’t got a massive budget so we need to be a bit smarter in terms of what kind of players we can bring in.

I’ve given them a style of player that we want, and it’s just up to us now to get four or five of them across the line to help the team that we’ve currently got.”

Former Premier League footballer Tony McMahon will also remain at the club as Morton’s assistant manager and Joe Stead will continue in his role as goalkeeping coach.