\n Manager Stuart Maynard may not have got the time to get a deserved holiday this off-season, but it\u2019s hasn\u2019t dried up his appetite to get back into the football swing at the end of June.\n<\/p>\n
\n York are readying themselves for a first season back in Sky Bet League Two in a decade, having celebrated a record-breaking season where they earned 108 points, and topped the Enterprise National League table to win the title.\n<\/p>\n
\n Highly-ambitious City will be aiming to go back-to-back, and for Maynard, he cannot wait to get back on the training pitch to give the Minstermen the best chance of doing so.\n<\/p>\n
\n The first target for York to hit will be for them to hit the fitness level he requires of his players, with the boss believing their selection of pre-season friendlies will contribute to that.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cWe\u2019re back on the 29th of June. We\u2019re excited, we can\u2019t wait, we\u2019re all really looking forward to it,\u201d Maynard enthused to The Press.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cWe had spoken about it [friendlies], and I\u2019m big on finding a way to get the players fit.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cI like to play local teams, because it helps out with our revenue with the fanbase we\u2019ll bring.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cI think it really helps, and it\u2019s really good to have a mix of higher league oppositions coming to our place for our fans to see us get tested, and see where we\u2019re at with the fitness levels.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cIt\u2019s about getting fit, and then getting the detail in again from last season, to keep improving it and playing against teams that will really challenge you.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cIt\u2019s about getting that mixture and blend right, it doesn\u2019t bother me too much who we play in that sense, but I like to play the local teams and then a few bigger teams.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n City kick-off their pre-season campaign on Saturday, July 11, when Barnsley make the visit to the LNER Community Stadium (3pm).\n<\/p>\n
\n A local visit, as Maynard wanted, follows when the Minstermen head to Mill Lane to take on Pickering Town on Tuesday, July 14 (7.30pm), before an exciting clash against Europa League bound Sunderland on Saturday, July 18 (3pm).\n<\/p>\n
\n As of right now, York will finish their pre-season preparations on Tuesday, July 28 against League One side Peterborough United (7.30pm), before they enter the Carabao Cup preliminary round on Monday, August 3 (7.30pm) and their League Two campaigns starts on the weekend of August 14-16.\n<\/p>\n
\n York City’s pre-season plan mapped out with fitness targeted. Pictured: York City are expecting a big crowd when Sunderland visit in July. The two clubs are pictured facing one another in a friendly in July 2011, in which the Black Cats won 2-1. (Image: Archive)\n<\/p>\n
\n The Sunderland friendly in particular stands out as an enticing fixture for York, with their Black Cat visitors making the trip down ahead of their Premier League and Europa League campaign.\n<\/p>\n
\n Maynard hopes a huge crowd will turn up for the fixture at the LNER Community Stadium, saying: \u201cIt\u2019ll be a big crowd, a huge crowd.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cThat\u2019s good, it\u2019s good for the community again and it\u2019ll show once against how far York City have come, and how we\u2019ve come together as a football club.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cIt\u2019ll probably be a sell out and it\u2019s going to be brilliant.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cI think we have sold five-and-a-half thousand season tickets, I\u2019m expecting it to probably be a sell out every week.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cI\u2019m really looking forward to it.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n Ahead of York\u2019s return to pre-season, Maynard hasn\u2019t switched off from the football, doing analysis work and studying his coaching licenses to help be best prepared for the new campaign.\n<\/p>\n
\n He explained: \u201cI\u2019ve been watching lots of footage from League Two, watching lots of players.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cI\u2019m in Belfast at the minute doing my A license, it\u2019s been non-stop has my brain!\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cMy daughter is doing her GCSE\u2019s so we haven\u2019t really had a chance to go away yet.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Manager Stuart Maynard may not have got the time to get a deserved holiday this off-season, but it\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":491378,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[565,134,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-491377","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fitness","tag-fitness","tag-health","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/491377","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=491377"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/491377\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/491378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=491377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=491377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=491377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}