I think it is fair to say that I have come in for a fair amount of flak in the course of the last four weeks.

There have also been many other insinuations made about my motives and reasoning for becoming involved in the club.

It is just over 12 months ago that I first heard of the plight of York City. I have worked closely with a number of football clubs, and found that it is possible to raise reasonable levels of income in the form of sponsorship linked to motorsport. It was natural I should wish to explore the possibilities available.

All this, we must remember, was happening at a time when there was still a TV deal in place for the league AND the transfer market was still buoyant.

I had been set a time limit of March 31, 2002 to complete the takeover, and although perhaps not all of the circumstances and conditions were as I would have wanted in an ideal world, we managed it and set about trying to raise the profile of the club.

That I had also managed to negotiate a sponsorship deal for my motor racing team was fortunate, as it permitted me to invest the forecast profit from the deal directly into the football club as a director's loan of some £100,000 (yes, some of this has been repaid to me, but only in the form of paying for any club-related expenses, as I have taken no salary and it was, after all, my money).

Sadly, however, the difficult task of trying to change the fortunes of a club that was losing some £20,000 per week was made a great deal harder by the loss of the ITV Digital contract, not so much because of what it cost the club, but because it ruined the cash flow of the rest of the clubs in the League. This meant that the traditional route for the survival of York City was placed in doubt.

I have tried every concievable method to raise the profile of the club, to increase attendance and attract more people through the turnstiles. Those who do come are fiercely supportive and very loyal. The hard truth is that there are not yet enough of them.

At some point around the start of the season it became apparent that we would not achieve the expected income from gate receipts, and, unwilling to give up on the club, I set about raising money through sponsorship. In this respect I have been succesful in achieving a figure of £150,000 which is the amount of profit made by my racing team, that I could have allocated to the club in January. It was with this in mind that I launched the season ticket sale earlier in the year, reasoning that it would:

a) attract more people;

b) assist with the cash flow at a time when it was needed most;

c) when it became payable in January and added to the ticket sales achieved, it would provide some 20 per cent greater income for the club than that achieved in 2002 (which itself has been a record year for ticket sales).

That the collapse of the transfer market led to the sale of Russell Howarth for £25,000 was unforeseeable and led to the chain of events that overwhelmed the club and led to the appointment of administrators.

Although I am plainly involved in business to make money and a profit, I am not attempting to do this by unfair means, which is why I have undertaken to refund all season ticket purchases for 2003/4 personally in the event of a resolution to our problems not being forthcoming.

The staff at the club and I have worked very, very hard throughout 2002 to keep the club afloat against a background of the world of football falling apart. We may yet succeed in solving our problems, but to do that we need the support of everyone who has an interest in keeping football in York alive. They need to contact the administrators NOW to pledge their support in whatever way they can.

On the subject of Bootham Crescent, it may or may not surprise anyone to know that it has never been high on my list of priorities. From day one at the club it has been obvious that it has sadly had its day.

I had assumed at take-over that the holding company who own BC and the developers involved would know and understand that planning consent on the site might take years, and that it would surely be in their interest to allow the club to stay there at a sustainable rent.

No matter what anyone thinks of me, and the methods that I have employed, I am not a quitter, I have never failed at anything in my life and I don't want to fail at York.

It is quite possible that amongst the fan base of the club my position is seen as unsustainable, and it may well be that I do not form part of the new management at the club, but I will not stop trying to find a future for the club and finishing the job that I set out to do.

Many thanks to all of those who have shown support thus far.

Updated: 10:45 Thursday, January 02, 2003