ADMINISTRATORS have set a 'high noon' deadline on Thursday for all interested parties to put their bids on the table to save York City from extinction.

Jacksons Jolliffe Cork, who have been running the club since December 18, contacted all interested parties by e-mail and fax at the end of last week to inform them that they had until 12 noon on January 16 to put in firm offers - two days ahead of the January 18 'D-Day' originally set for a deal to be completed.

And encouragingly for the worried fans, staff and players of the Minstermen, the administrators are confident that they will receive 'two or three offers' in time.

As reported by the Evening Press, there were two parties leading the way to take over the club, but these have now been joined by a third consortium.

All three are believed to be finalising their offers before replying to the information sent to them by the administrators. If solid bids do come in, the January 18 deadline would be extended to cover the completion of any deal.

David Willis, who has been in charge of the day-to-day running of York City, told the Evening Press: "On Friday we contacted, by e-mail and fax, all the parties that had expressed an initial interest and asked them to provide the details of their offer by noon on Thursday.

"We have sent them a template covering all aspects of what the bid should contain, such as dealing with the players, how much they will pay for the assets, the covering of the club's debts and the funding.

"We've not had any replies as of yet, but we have continued to speak to all parties, and while before we had a couple of front-runners, this number has now increased to three.

"If we receive offers by Thursday, then even with all the goodwill in the world we are unlikely to be able to complete a deal by Saturday.

"In this case we would then speak to the party and ask how long it will take to complete the contract. It could be a week, so we would continue to trade for a week, but we would require some indemnity from them to cover us from liability.

"We are confident we will receive two or three bids in time."

Willis has reiterated that any bidder 'would have to any funding in place' to complete any take over of the Minstermen.

The third potential bidder to emerge from the pack is a second local business-backed consortium, who had expressed an initial interest a while back, but was now closer to financing a deal.

Willis added: "We had spoken to them before, but we hadn't heard from them so we thought their interest had cooled.

"They have now been back in touch and said that they are a long way down the line to putting together a deal."

No names have yet been revealed for any of the parties, but all three leading the way are consortiums - with two backed by local business and another from outside the county.

Updated: 12:23 Tuesday, January 14, 2003