York kick-off their Enterprise National League season this Saturday when Sutton United visit the LNER Community Stadium (3pm), with City hoping to go one better after their play-off heartbreak of last campaign.
Hinshelwood is itching to get going after the Minstermen’s pre-season campaign ended with a 1-0 win at Spennymoor Town last week, and is enjoying the idea of watching meaningful football again.
“[I’m the] same, it’s got to this stage now of pre-season where you just can’t wait for the season to get going, and I’m no different myself,” Hinshelwood enthused.
“It’s nice to be back playing games with some meaning, and for having three points up for grabs.
“That’s what we’re all in it for, and what we do it for.
“I’m similar, there’s probably a bit of nervousness there as well but ultimately I’m excited.
“I can’t wait to get going.”
City have had a settled squad for a lot of pre-season, having concluded the majority of their squad recruitment prior to the opening friendly with Salford City.
Hinshelwood has been impressed with how his new recruits have bedded in with the squad of last season, and felt that by doing their transfer business early on, it had reaped its rewards throughout pre-season.
The York manager explained: “I’ve been happy with the new recruits have settled in and how they’ve looked in pre-season, and the mixture of games.
“There’s been a couple of humbling home defeats, we’ve played a behind-closed-doors game against a Championship side as well, which was a good test.
“We’ve had a few games where we’ve had a bit more of the ball, so in the main, the balance of the fixtures has been good.
“We worked well and got a lot of our business done, and I’m happy with the recruitment that we’ve done.
“With a bit more experience, a bit more knowhow, that was vital for us.
“We looked at the percentage of where we conceded goals, and it was a lot of long balls or second balls where we were hoping we’d have personnel.
“A lot of recruitment strategy was to look at players that could handle the ball and still play in our style, but was also good in those defensive duels as well.
“It was a big part of our recruitment, we want to get our balance right and don’t want to lose the identity of how we play.
“At the same time, we can take some learnings from last year and try to improve.”
With City’s pre-season now wrapped up and the beginning of the new campaign approaching, a lot of talk surrounding the National League has been where the title will end up come April.
York have been backed by the bookmakers to go on and win promotion to the Football League, a confidence that Hinshelwood is ‘relishing’ with City able to handle the pressure it brings.
“It’s definitely something you’ve got to relish, but it’s something for me to look at or get to worried about, what the bookmakers are saying.
“We’re confident that with the recruitment we’ve done, the squad has improved and is in a better place than it was last year.
“That’s all our focus is, but with all of that said and done, it’s got to come together when it matters.
“We’ve got a really tough points tally, the goals for, the goals against to try and improve on.
“It’s there in black and white for us to try and improve on, so that’s what we’ll focus on.”
That added pressure of being favourites for the title could affect the City players, but Hinshelwood is determined to protect them from any unwanted attention from the outside with expectations high for the coming season.
He instead intends to take that pressure on his shoulders, saying: “No one will put any more pressure on them than what I will myself, we want to win as many games as possible, set records, and I put that sort of pressure on myself anyways.
“I’m obviously little bit worried about what the board might want!
“I don’t lose sleep over it, but it’s no different for me because even when we were struggling to win games when I first came in, I was putting pressure on myself.
“That was tough, that was hard pressure to take, and this is where any player or manager wants to be.
“Although the pressure wasn’t there last season, I want to put it on myself, I came back on day one and said quite clearly to the boys what I wanted.”
