FLAMINGO Land boss Gordon Gibb is willing to takeover York City - but not at any price.

The 26-year-old owner of the theme park and zoo, near Malton, has said that the offer he made to the club in August 2000 is still on the table.

He is now considering fresh approach to the club but having been turned down once before was not confident the board would be interested.

City chairman Douglas Craig dismissed reports at the time that there had been any formal talks of a takeover.

But multi-millionaire Gibb maintained that offer had been serious and buying the club was still one of his targets.

Gibb, the former chairman of Hamilton Academicals, said: "The share price was the stumbling block."

He had offered to buy 200,000 shares for £500,000 as well as investing around £1.5million in new players. But his valuation of the shares did not match up to City's directors.

Gibb said that he was unable to say what valuation the directors put on the shares as he had signed a confidentiality agreement. "I wish I could tell you, but I cannot. I won't break the agreement," he said.

At the time of his initial approach, City were losing around £12,000 a week, said Gibb. Now they are losing much more than that.

He added: "I felt at the time that it was a fair offer and told them they would live to regret not taking it. I hate to say 'I told you so' but... I am not surprised it has happened."

Gibb said that it was no longer possible to run lower division football clubs without proper investment.

York businessman Adam Sinclair, whose father Michael was chairman of the club between 1978 and 1991, said : "I very much hope that the ownership of the club remains with York people, and that football continues to be played at Bootham Crescent."

Asked if he would be interested in buying the club, he said: "I would be supportive of a properly constituted bid to purchase the football club and all the football-related premises for a fair price."

Updated: 10:54 Saturday, December 22, 2001