York City Football Club were today buying Bootham Crescent for just over £2million.

The club were acquiring shares from the board of Bootham Crescent Holdings and Persimmon Homes Ltd to take control of the ground.

The deal was being announced at the annual meeting of BCH at Bootham Crescent today.

It was the final hurdle to be cleared in the long fight to secure the ground. It means that the fans'-owned club has, in effect, gained an asset which could realise capital to fund any move to a new purpose-built stadium in the future.

Today's deal came to fruition after talks between BCH chairman and former football club chairman Douglas Craig and the current football club's managing director Jason McGill.

YCFC were buying 151,768 shares in the club from Craig and fellow BCH directors Barry Swallow and Colin Webb, who were also former directors of the football club.

The club was acquiring from the shareholders of BCH 75 per cent of issued shares in BCH. That would give YCFC a controlling stake in BCH and control of Bootham Crescent.

The key terms of the deal, are:

York City have acquired 151,768 ordinary shares of £1 each in BCH from Craig, Swallow, Webb and their respective wives, and developers Persimmon Homes Ltd;

The price paid per share would be £11.10 so Craig, Swallow and Webb would get around £1.68million between them.

The sum of £151,768 would be paid to Craig, Swallow and Webb in final settlement of all amounts owed to them by BCH in respect of directors' loans;

Persimmon, who submitted planning permission to build houses on the ground, would be paid £202,389.90 for them agreeing to release their conditional contract over the ground;

The remaining 25 per cent shareholding by Craig, Swallow and Webb can be bought by the football club at a set price at some future date.

The transaction has been funded by a £2million loan to York City FC from the Football Improvement Fund.

After details of today's deal were being announced the BCH board were scheduled to resign after which an extraordinary general meeting was to be convened.

At that EGM, McGill, City's finance director Terry Doyle and Mike Shannon, a City Supporters' Trust committee member, were then to be elected as the new BCH board.

It is now thought that the club and Persimmon will, at the end of February, submit a new planning application to build houses on Bootham Crescent. That deal will help fund the move to a new ground.

The deal between BCH and the football club was finalised by the corporate department of York solicitors Denison Till.

Updated: 10:25 Tuesday, January 11, 2005