Colin Walker, York City FC’s new talisman
Colin Walker is in a buoyant mood. A self-styled loudmouth, a larger-than-life football personality, the York City gaffer has quite literally been round the world in an unusual career, but doesn’t conceal his quintessential Yorkshire heritage. No bull, no nonsense.
His gaze rarely strays beyond the immediate future and seldom to the past. In his bare and cavernous hide-away at Kitkat Crescent, his Blue Square Manager of the Month award from December, a garish blue doorstop, sits collecting dust on a high shelf as if ancient history.
Caught in the unrelenting momentum of the present day, Walker has transformed the Minstermen from relegation candidates in the autumn gloom of numerous defeats to play-off probables in the light of spring. At its core, a stunning ten-game unbeaten League stretch which continued with a comfortable 2-0 home victory over Grays Athletic in recent weeks. No mean feat in a notoriously awkward division.
The secret of his success? Well, he’s not letting much slip as Nouse caught up with the City manager recently: “Adam,” he confides genially, ‘if i knew what the secret was, I would bottle it, sell it and retire.’ When pressed into an answer, he said: “I’ve given the players the freedom to express themselves and I think they’ve responded to that. I’ve given them a sense of purpose.” He certainly has, the team’s creativity on the field, this freedom of expression, betrays the fresh impetus Walker has provided of late.
Walker’s modesty is never far from the surface as he acknowledges how unselfish his inherited squad have been, “I’ve been fortunate enough to have a squad of players who want to play for the name on the front of the shirt and not the name on the back.” The old football idiom ‘take each game as it comes’ certainly applies here for the moment and don’t expect him to admit that his team are realistic promotion contenders. “We’ve been good, now what we’ve got to wait for is consistency, game after game after game,” he says. “I think when you get into that, then obviously you become a serious contender.”
The team also remain firmly in FA Trophy contention, although a tricky-looking tie away at Rushden and Diamonds awaits them. Is the road to Wembley upsetting the League bread and butter? “Well, they’re a welcome distraction because you earn some money by going forward into the next round.” Typical Walker, brutally honest in his analysis of the club’s current situation. “When the team are doing well, they just want to play football. They don’t want to train, they just want to play.”
The Colin Walker revolution at York City has only just begun and he appreciates there are still i”provements to be made. ‘I think that we, as a football club, have got to forge closer links with the community…the links that you forge can be your next supporter, your next player, your next sponsor, or your next chairman, whatever.” So, what of the future? Well, the aim is unambiguous, “success would be back into the Football League – where this football club should be.” With Walker’s pluck and determination, who would bet against it?
I find myself ushered out of the office. There are matches to review, performances to analyse, selections to make. In the world of football, there’s no rest for the committed.
