Pickering Town manager Mark Wood has his heart set on leading his hometown club into the promised land of the UniBond League. Here the ex-York City junior passionately outlines his plans to TONY KELLY.

IF passion and push were the sole requisites for any football manager to succeed then Pickering Town boss Mark Wood would be up there with the best of them.

There’s a cliché oft-used in covering the game that the most dedicated practitioners, be they players or bosses, eat, sleep and breathe football. The 38-year-old Wood is undoubtedly one of that devoted, diligent and determined clan.

If anyone were to query that impression, they need only watch him patrolling and prowling the technical area on the sidelines while his Recreation Ground charges perform out there on the pitch.

Wood, the former York City wide-man, whose career as a professional was over almost before it got started at Bootham Crescent, is a ball of knotted energy.

He puts the fizz into physicality as he virtually heads every ball, clears each cross into the Pickering box, takes on and tackles all opponents, makes countless passes and interceptions.

He accompanies those near-manic manoeuvres with bellowed instructions as to which of his blue-clad players should “tuck in” or “drop deep” or “get to the byline”.

As he fidgets and frets in trademark tracksuit, Wood also clutches paper and pencil hopeful that if something goes awry across the fabled white line then he can come up with a plan ‘B’ or some other formula to right matters.

At the moment, things are going well for Wood and the Pikes.

Currently 11 games unbeaten, the goals are flowing, the wins are piling up and they are again making inroads on the upper reaches of the Northern Counties East League premier division after almost a year in transition after potential was frayed by a flurry of departures.

“When I first took the job we were struggling down in about 14th or 15th place but we recovered to finish ninth,” recalled Wood.

“Then, in my first full season we finished third after what was a very good term. Last year we were as high as second and then around February we lost a load of players. We lost about 14 players in about seven or eight weeks, so since then it’s been a rebuilding process.

“We have had to undergo a lot of changes. But I feel now we are certainly back on the right track and heading in the right direction.

“I would say that the way we are playing right now shows we are better than suggested by our league position.”

It’s an upwardly mobile progress that has characterised Wood’s reign at Pickering since he first took over as manager just over three seasons ago. And it is that advancement which spurs the PE teacher at Archbishop Holgate’s School in York and provides a highly motivational mainspring for the manager.

Said Wood: “The immediate aim is to try to get us back into the top two or three teams and then my ultimate goal is to be the first man to take them out of the NCEL and into the UniBond League.”

It’s a mission statement that could have been specifically authored for Wood, whose links with the Recreation Ground club are many-fold and binding.

His dad “Wizzie” Wood was both a player and manager. When Wood junior had his career curtailed with the Minstermen, he followed a productive stint at Goole Town by returning to North Yorkshire to wear the blue shirt of the Pikes with distinction.

“I don’t recall my dad’s time as manager here, but I remember coming down to the ground as a youngster and watching him play,” said Wood, whose burgeoning talent attracted the attention of York City, where he rapidly rose through the junior ranks.

Winger Wood’s contemporaries at Bootham Crescent included strikers Garry Naylor and Iain Dunn, plus a young shot-stopper by the name of Dean Kiely.

“We had a good reserves team then and we were well coached by the likes of Alan Little and Ricky Sbragia,” said Wood. “Ricky, in particular, was a great coach and I worked with him for about two years. He was a disciplinarian, but he gave you what you needed and wanted to know.

“I was not surprised to see him do so well on the coaching front of several Premiership teams (Manchester United, Bolton and Sunderland).”

Wood was given a professional contract by then City manager John Bird. But, other than two substitute appearances, his time as a pro was limited to just the 1990/1 season before he was released, coincidentally on the same day that Dunn too was freed from the Minstermen.

Both ended up at Goole, where they forged a prolific, predatory partnership, but even now Wood smarts at the memory of being cut loose from City. “I was absolutely gutted. I thought I was going to be a pro footballer for a lot of years, so to be told I was being let go was a huge blow.”

Wood though refused to be brow-beaten and opted to become a school-teacher as well as combining playing days at Goole.

He has been a teacher in the PE department at Archbishop Holgate’s for ten years now and loves combining that role with his job as manager of his beloved Pickering.

“I genuinely enjoy being a football manager and I would love to get Pickering into the UniBond. I’m born and bred here. My heart is here in this club.”