Stuart Maynard
The Appointment
Stuart Maynard was appointed City’s manager on August 28th, 2025. His previous managerial post had been at Notts County where he’d been appointed in January 2024 in succession to the Swansea bound Luke Williams. He was sacked in May 2025 after a defeat in the League 2 play off semi final.
That was his first full job in “professional” football. After a long playing career in the lower echelons of non league football around the south east, he was appointed as assistant manager at Hemel Hempstead Town when former teammate Dean Brennan was appointed as manager. The pair moved onto Billericay Town and then briefly to Kingstonian in February 2019, the pair resigned a month later after a breakdown in relationship with the board. 2 months later they re-appeared at National League South side Wealdstone, becoming champions in their first season.
When Brennan resigned in February 2021 to move to Barnet, Maynard stepped up and was appointed Wealdstone’s manager.
Many felt he and Wealdstone pushed above their weight, but even so, it was a surprise to many when Notts County appointed him. To then (Wealdstone included), Maynard had combined his part time footballing career with a job as BT engineer. At the time of his sacking Notts County's owners said, "While football is a game of fine margins, and Stuart undoubtedly faced numerous challenges over the course of the campaign, neither results nor performances reached the levels we believe the team was capable of - particularly during the defining period towards the end".
It could be argued that his managerial career mirrored that of Adam Hinshelwood, moving up the ranks of southern non league football before turning full time. More importantly, his long association with Dean Brennan, possibly didn’t hinder him when appointed City’s manager.
Whatever, Maynard has a hard act to follow.
His style of play is usually 352, very occasionally 3421, some describe his teams as playing drab, slow and ponderous football. Others suggested that he was one dimensional. Tactics wise, others describe Maynard's tactics about being relentless pressure on the opposition and he had used the phrase "locking off", the tactic whereby you have a defender behind their player and a midfielder stood basically right in front to isolate him, but given the numbers, you can't do it all over the pitch but you can isolate their good players and force teams down a certain side or part of the pitch.
Stuart Maynard became the first ever manager to be appointed after the start of the season to gain 100 points in his first season.
It is understood that Maynard was interviewed for the manager's post when as Wealdstone manager, he was overlooked in favour of free agent Neal Ardley.
NewsDrift (USA newcast) analyses Maynard's appointment.
Footnote: As City basked in title winning glory at the end of his first season, Maynard was DAZN expert summariser for the play off final at Wembley between Rochdale and Boreham Wood. He predicted Rochdale would win on penalties after a 2-2 draw. Is there anything this man cannot do?
Meet The Manager
On 02 March 2026, York City South were invited into the team's Elstree hotel on the eve of the game at Boreham Wood. Stuart Maynard, gave an insightful talk, although no formal notes were taken, some anecdotes included:
The End
City returned from Spain on July 25 and the following morning, rumours of Maynard's demise surfaced. They were confirmed by a City tweet that afternoon.
The sacking, and its timing, took people, City fans and the wider footballing world, by surprise. It was one day after the squad returned from their Spanish hot weather training camp and 8 days before the start of the new season.
There had been no real signs that it was coming, although looking back, maybe there were pointers including Matt Uggla’s comment to the effect that "anyone could have won the league with the squad I assembled" and the prominence of him, Julie Anne and Marvin Armstrong in some of the title winning celebrations. Maynard’s comments regarding the state of the training pitch, being2 weeks behind pre-season schedule and Josh Stones saying that Maynard was the main reason he signed a contract extension and sung his praises didn’t go down too well with Matt Uggla.
It is unclear how Maynard felt about the recruitment model, suffice to say it is similar to that he worked with at Notts County. He and Matt Uggla seemed to be as one on the keeper front, both believing the club needed a step up from Harrison Male whilst Maynard seemed to have identified Alfie McNally last autumn.
Noises about the manager not being fully aligned to club vision might beg the question what is the club vision and why appoint them in the first place.
We’re constantly told to “trust the process”, all well said and done, but when managers are so regularly relieved of their duties, the process maybe questionable, however, to date 394 Sports managerial appointments have been an upgrade on the previous one. It must be said that both Adam Hinshelwood and Stuart Maynard were sacked very late in the summer. For Hinsh, he was 4 games into the new season and Maynard just 8 days away from the start of it. Where might City be if the changes had been made in May?
Many were surprised by Hinshelwood’s sacking, even more were surprised by Maynard’s dismissal. Given similarities between the 2, both may need to be judged in a different light.
Will the constant change of manager become the norm? If it brings success, great, but as soon as it doesn’t, questions will be asked.
That said, there was some disillusionment amongst City’s supporter base and dismay amongst the wider footballing community.
Any new manager will need to hit the ground running otherwise, he may quickly incur the wrath of supporter and owner.
Stuart Maynard arrived, a little unexpectedly, both in terms of timing and his stature in the game. An unassuming and genuinely likeable man, universally loved across the fanbase, he quickly won over the fans following Adam Hinshelwood’s 96 point season, many doubted how he could improve it, he did by a large margin.
Tactically he was very astute with great attention to detail, nothing went unnoticed. Invariably, he spoke with integrity, he never got too high in victory or too low when we lost or drew.
He leaves City with a host of records to his name, a 73.3% win record, numerous goal scoring records included and did something that many City managers tried and failed to achieve over the past 22 years, promotion back to the Football League. In addition, one manager of the season and 3 manager of the month awards.
He gave us the season of our lives, thank you.