York City managing director Jason McGill has called on the Supporters' Trust to repeat their tremendous fund-raising achievements of the past.

McGill pointed out that the owners of the football club, whose financial efforts prevented extinction during the dark days of administration, still have a major role to play in helping the Minstermen create a brighter future by meeting £2million loan repayments over the next ten years.

The money, acquired by McGill from the Football Stadia Improvement Fund, necessitated yesterday's transferral of ownership of Bootham Crescent back to the football club from former chairman Douglas Craig and directors Barry Swallow and Colin Webb.

It means City's finance director Terry Doyle will continue to have a stiff task balancing the football club's books but McGill believes the Trust can help relieve some of the financial pressure.

He said: "The responsibility (to meet the payments) should not just be Terry's. The Supporters' Trust have to play a big, key part.

"The football club should not just be resting on the shoulders of a few people. There's a lot of supporters out there who have been fantastic in the past who still need to keep supporting us and there has to be continued fund-raising initiatives that come from the Supporters' Trust and a regular commitment for them to provide income as paying off the loan is fundamental to going forward."

McGill also gave assurances that the £100,000 shortfall, previously required to raise the £2.1million needed to acquire a 75 per cent controlling interest of Bootham Crescent Holdings, has now been met.

He said: "York City's supporters should not lose any sleep at night about that as things are being worked on and, hopefully, very soon we will be able to announce that that part of the deal will be satisfied."

Supporters' Trust board member Mike Shannon will now join McGill and Doyle on BCH's new-three man board.

About his fellow directors, McGill added: "I have been working closely with Terry for quite a long time in his role as financial director. Mike Shannon is a Trust board member who was involved in the later stages of the deal and, because the Trust are the majority shareholders of the football club, we felt it was important for them to have a representation on the board of BCH.

"Everybody has put in a tremendous amount of effort and this is the culmination of a lot of hard work."

McGill also expressed his delight that yesterday's resolution was met with a 99.88 per cent approval of the BCH shareholding and hopes now that the team will show the same off-field passion as the club's supporters, directors and staff in their fight to achieve safety on the field in the Nationwide Conference.

He said: "It's been difficult dealing with matters that we inherited off the pitch. We had the ground issue and the financial issues to resolve and now it's time to concentrate on the pitch and give Viv (Busby) our full support to get us safe in this league, which is the priority.

"If we can wheel and deal and bring in one or two loan players to try and strengthen the squad and give the other players a bit more appetite for the fight, as you have got to be mentally tough as well as physically tough in this game, then we will.

"Certainly, if the players perform with the same determination as we have off the pitch, then I don't think we will have any problems."

The BCH deal will see former majority shareholder Craig receive £1,084,000 with fellow ex-directors Swallow and Webb getting £172,661 apiece.

Updated: 10:50 Wednesday, January 12, 2005