York City pressure group FACT would seem to have fire in their eyes.

FACT FINDER: Fans Against Craig Tyrrany campaign manager Greg Stone, at the FACT meeting at the Bay Horse pub on Marygate last night. Picture by Steven Bradshaw

The FACT (Fans Against Craig's Tyranny) group held their first public meeting at the Bay Horse, Marygate last night, with the outstanding revelation being that support for their stance was being taken seriously on the other side of the Atlantic.

A gathering of around 40 fans was told that around 400 messages of support had come from the States on the internet and among those backing FACT's stance against the current management at the club, and chairman Douglas Craig's style in particular, was an American businessman who already had a large stake in Stateside outfit Chicago Fire.

The FACT group came out this week saying that they were prepared to help organise a fans push to fund a takeover at the club and the trans-Atlantic connection was giving them reasons to be optimistic.

However, the temperature of FACT's first public meeting was hardly the hottest.

The group's spokesman Greg Stone basically used the meeting as a chance to introduce the group and their aims to a wider audience.

In fact Stone was at pains to stress just how things had just snowballed after the initial idea to make their feelings felt by a red card protest, but off the back of that impetus he felt that fans should be looking to galvanise their efforts.

"We are just eager to see if there is scope for an individual supporters association," he explained.

"We started out as just a few people who were unhappy with what was happening at the club and it was merely a campaign against Douglas Craig's running of the club, but we now feel that it is possible to raise the supporters profile.

"That is not to criticise the current supporters clubs that are running, but they do remain loyal to the regime, where we feel it is about time that the voice of the fans was heard."

Among those that attended there was support for FACT's stance and a few more ideas as to how fans could publically make their point without any need to resort to personal abuse, which was quite markedly missing from the chanting at City's home 2-2 draw with Southend United last night.

And there were even a few kind words from Stone for Craig.

"I think that everyone appreciates the job that Douglas Craig has done in keeping the club from going under," said Stone.

"In many ways the club is on a sound financial footing but to achgieve that we have had to sell our best players to survive.

"But what we have got to look at clubs like Stockport County, Crewe and even Bradford City who we were playing against not too many seasons ago and try and get the regime at the club to generate that kind of ambition."

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.