John Schofield has been busy doing his bit this week to clear the Priestfield pitch of the ice and snow. Picture: Barry Goodwin

There were several members of staff suffering with bad backs this week but it was all for a good cause.

We spent several hours on Monday getting the snow off the Priestfield pitch so we could get a training session on.

When we peeled back the covers, the pitch was great. It looked fantastic underneath and we managed to get an hour’s football into all of the lads, on the grass, so it was a great worthwhile exercise.

The weather has certainly not stopped us and along with lots of snowball fights and messing about, we have had some good sessions.

On Monday morning, a five-inch layer of snow on the training pitch didn’t stop us.

We did some handball which is good for our passing and movement. You can’t pass through people so we were having to make those same angles that you would to pass the ball and worked on keeping possession of the ball and working our way up the pitch.

We also did a crossing and finishing exercise with plenty of running and movement.

So, having had the weekend off because of the postponement at Rochdale, we had a fun, physical session and it started the week off well ahead of the visit of York on Saturday.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t just my back that was killing from all that shovelling of snow. I also have a big cut to my nose from diving and messing about in the snow.

York have done fantastic to get back into the Football League, having been relegated to the Conference.

There was an old adage that if you stayed full-time and went down, you would come straight back up.

It’s now the norm to be full-time and there are some good teams in the Conference. What York have done is add good players. They have a good manager and are well organised.

Read more from John Schofield in Friday's Medway Messenger.