YORK chairman Clint Goodchild has revealed that all of the club’s signings made ahead of their first season in Super League knew that there was a risk they would not be promoted to the top flight.
The Knights, along with Bradford Bulls and Toulouse Olympique, were elevated to the top flight at the end of the 2025 campaign as Super League moves to 14 teams.
During the year, however, it was uncertain which teams would be given the nod, but the Knights had started recruiting early in the hope of making it to Super League.
The likes of Paul Vaughan, Josh Griffin, Justin Sangare and Jon Bennison have all agreed to link up with Mark Applegarth’s side for 2026 and beyond.
But, they all did so in the knowledge that York may not have been a Super League club next season.
“The majority of our squad has been signed for months, we started our recruitment quite early,” Goodchild told League Express.
“There might be one or two to come in still but that will be on a case-by-case basis.
“We have still got a couple of new signings to announce but we will announce those in due time.”
So what would have happened had York not achieved promotion to Super League?
“We would have still had to pay all of our new signings! We would just have been a full-time team in the Championship.
“That was the commitment, if you’re going to be half-hearted about it and do something dependent on something else then I don’t think you can have a clear plan of execution.
“For us it was always about going full-time. Any player that we signed knew there would be a risk we could have been outside Super League.
“Fortunately, it turned out that we made our way up there.”
So what aims do York have for their first season in Super League?
“For us it’s about getting prepared as we can to compete at the highest level we can, making those improvements week on week,” Goodchild continued.
“To come out and say ‘we are going to be x, y or z on the table’ and that we have big expectations of whatever it may be would probably be setting us up for distraction good or bad.
“For me, it’s about focusing on best performances week in, week out.”