John Stabler and myself have recently placed with the directors of Bootham Crescent Holdings a substantial bid to acquire the assets of their company.

The very purpose of our bid unequivocally is to secure the future of professional football in the city of York.

To achieve our aim the club must be financially viable and therefore we propose that the club continues to play at Bootham Crescent for a period of up to three years.

In the interim we anticipate the securing of a green-belt site and the building of a 15,000 all-seater, all-purpose stadium. Then with the new stadium and working within the constraints of a business plan we can aim for First Division status for the club within a three-to-five-year period.

Obviously, sponsorship is vitally important and we have assurances from a blue chip company that the minimum of £100,000 would be forthcoming.

Even at this early stage we are looking a various sites to consider the respective suitability for the building of a modern stadium with full facilities, subject, of course, to the necessary planning.

We are very close at the moment to acquiring the finance to build this ideal stadium.

We recognise that, with the passion and concern the fans and York City Supporters' Trust have shown over the past few weeks, the preservation of professional football in the city is of paramount importance.

Thereby we envisage that the Supporters' Trust would be entrusted to continue their commitment and play a vital role in the future running of York City Football Club.

We as individuals pledge that any profits or gains made through all the various property and financial dealings will be directed fully back into the club. Not one penny would come to the directors.

Finally, should any other bid be successful and be deemed better for York City Football Club than our own, then it will receive our full support and encouragement.

WHY on earth should the fans of York City back a bid from me?

Well, without wishing to sound like a politician - we all know what they're like, strangers to the truth etc - because I'll do the best job.

York City FC has a long and proud tradition and, if the contents of my email box are anything to go by, have some of the most fanatical and loyal fans.

There is no doubt at all that in recent years an air of resignation has settled around the club and it has lost the belief that it can ever be anything other than a third division prop-up.

Why should we settle for that?

There is NO reason why this club can't go all the way to the top.

The City is big enough to support a major club, I believe the council when they say they want to help and there are plenty of large companies in and around York able to lend their support (and to them I'd just like to say, now is the time to stop looking at your corporate marketing strategies and put your hands in your profits to help your own community, I shall say no more, they all know who they are, and I'm sure they can contact me via this newspaper, first one to do it can have the new stadium naming rights....at the right price!).

I will bring a strengthened team, both on the pitch and in the boardroom, people who really know how to promote the club in all senses of the word.

Along with all of this, however, will be a need to move to a new stadium, which I know some supporters will find difficult but Bootham Crescent just cannot physically accommodate a team that can compete in the 21st century.

I want to involve the supporters in a real and tangible way, I want them on the board as shareholders with a real voice and I want a mechanism in place that ensures that they will never be in this position again.

Most of all, what I really want is to create something that is FUN, that everyone can get behind and enjoy, that adds to the City, and that's why you should support this bid, because it'll be the most fun!

Updated: 12:48 Thursday, February 07, 2002