ALL Bootham Crescent Holdings shareholders will be asked to hand back their shares for £1 each at an extraordinary meeting on Wednesday, July 6.

The meeting is being called to transfer the holding company into a private limited company after the football club successfully bought back Bootham Crescent by agreeing a deal for the 75.89 majority shareholding of former chairman Douglas Craig and ex-directors Barry Swallow and Colin Webb.

Another former football club director John Quickfall, who was also a founder member of BCH, agreed to pay back his 19,282 shares at £1 - the price he paid for them - and City's board of directors are expected to ask all remaining minority shareholders to follow suit at next month's meeting.

Managing director Jason McGill, the man responsible for brokering the deal with Craig, said: "An extraordinary meeting will be held at Bootham Crescent on July 6 and the resolution is for the shareholders to vote in favour of converting Bootham Crescent Holdings into a limited company, which is absolutely crucial for the deal to go through."

McGill added that the board have undertaken thorough investigations to ensure that repayments on the £2million loan from the Football Stadia Investment Fund will be met by the club.

The loan is due to be repaid over the next ten years with a variable interest rate 0.5 per cent above the base rate.

City finance director Terry Doyle, who is a BCH minority shareholder himself, has previously reported that the club's budget next season is based on home crowds of 2,000 and McGill said: "We have done business plans and a cash flow forecast and we have proven we can make these repayments.

"They will be significant repayments but we have taken them on board and have got the income to make these payments and, if we don't, it's going to have serious consequences but I am very confident that won't happen. We certainly would not have entered into the agreement if we thought that the repayments could not be made.

"We are looking to make a small profit or break even at the end of this year which is a massive achievement considering that we took on £1.5million debts."

Despite no location for a new stadium being identified, as yet, McGill is also confident that the club by meeting time deadlines specified in the loan agreement.

A site for the new stadium must be identified by 2007 and a detailed planning application must have been completed by 2009 to avoid financial penalties.

He said: "We will not sit and languish at Bootham Crescent. Nobody thought we could buy the ground back but we made it happen and, likewise, we will make the move happen.

"We have got the council on board and commitments have been made. We want a 10,000-seater stadium because that is the criteria required for a First Division club.

"That's still where we want to be. We don't want to be struggling in the lower regions of the Football League."

Updated: 10:38 Saturday, June 12, 2004