York City enjoyed their best season in a long time which was capped by winning promotion to the Football League on the top of claiming the FA Trophy a week earlier. The expectations were indeed high at the start of the season after Gary Mills came close to getting a play-off spot the previous season and his men were up and running in the early weeks. They fell to three defeats in the first seven games against inauspicious opposition but when their game plan was working, their looked superb and dismantled Wrexham away from home and Luton in front of their fans by 3:0 in consecutive weeks. They started to get more consistent in October when they won four out of six games and began an unbeaten run of 12 games that lasted all the way to December. Jason Walker was in sensational form going forward, Andre Bocuaud was orchestrating the game from midfield and Matty Blair was coming up trumps from the left wing. York looked as good as Fleetwood and Wrexham when their game clicked but at times they were just losing their focus and the injury of Walker hit them badly in the attacking department around the turn of the year. They still looked a safe bet for the play-offs despite winning just two out of eight games in January. At the same time they were getting in the advanced stages of the FA Trophy and a narrow 1:0 win at Grimsby set up a tasty semi-final against Luton. They dramatically won 1:0 at home before Blair scored in the last minute of normal time in the return leg to secure a 1:1 draw and a Wembley final against Newport County. However, the league campaign seemed to be stuttering and a 2:1 loss to direct rivals Southport threw their place in the top-five in doubt. Further two defeats from the next three games made it even more tense but eventually a superb 1:0 win at Cambridge, when down to ten men, all but secured their spot and they finished fourth. They faced the in-form Mansfield in the play-offs and the odds were against them after a 1:1 draw at home but a nail-biting second-leg saw Blair scored another vital goal to secure a 1:0 win after extra-time. Then York defeated confidently Newport 2:0 and a week later just about edged Luton 2:1 in a nervy game in which once again Blair came up with the vital goal that ended the eight-year wait for a return to the Football League. It was a fitting finale to an amazing first full season in charge for Mills who rated this as his best achievement in football which is something from a man who has won the European Cup.
