MOVES are afoot to set up a supporters trust to rescue York Wasps.

Such a trust helped secure the future of York City FC and fans of the rugby club are keen to follow suit.

A meeting has been arranged for 2pm on Sunday at Huntington Stadium. Ironically that will be 18 years to the day when 10,000 Wasps' fans travelled to Elland Road to watch their heroes lose to Wigan in the Challenge Cup semi-final.

The future of the club could now depend on Sunday's meeting.

As revealed by the Evening Press yesterday, the Wasps, following an emergency meeting with the Rugby Football League, have been given until Tuesday next week to find someone willing to take on the running of the club or re-finance it to fulfil this season's fixtures.

This meeting was arranged following the sensational declaration by chairman John Stabler that the club had folded as of Tuesday night.

The Wasps officially handed in their resignation from the RFL but, after saying there was a possibility someone might spark a rescue, were given six days to effectively save the club.

Life-long supporter Gary Hall has started the ball rolling towards the formation of a trust.

He feels that - as happened with City - a successful trust could herald a new dawn for the Wasps. If the support is not there, however, it could hammer the final nail into the Wasps' coffin.

Supporters Direct - the body which helped set up the York City Supporters' Trust - have been asked for advice, as have fans of Bramley RLFC, a club which went defunct but is likely to rejoin the professional league set-up next season.

The RFL themselves have given their backing.

Hall said: "It's like having a death in the family. I'm totally devastated by it all.

"But I'm not giving up. I feel that the supporters have to get together.

"The club has seemed to go from disaster to disaster but always pulled through and I think some people might think this is just another one. But I don't think there's ever been anything as big or as bad as this.

"I cannot sit back and watch the club die."

Hall, an international sales manager for an Oxfordshire-based company, added: "There is probably a hard-core of about 500 fans who will be feeling exactly the same as me. There's probably latent support of about 1,000 people on top of that.

"Eighteen years ago when we got to the semi-finals of the Challenge Cup, at least 10,000 people went from York. The fans are out there and I think there will be a lot of people who are willing to help to make sure we've got a club for the future."

Added Hall: "There has been all this controversy about leaving Clarence Street and how the support has fallen away since then, but if we had a successful side people would stand in the middle of Knavesmire to watch them.

"In the early days of Huntington Stadium, the crowds were actually higher than at Clarence Street. But we had better players then."

He said he felt there would be enough public backing in York for a supporters' trust.

"If we have a public meeting and only six people turn up then that would be it," he said.

"We've got to find enough people who are passionately involved before taking it further.

"It seems the people of York have a choice. We could sit back, say nobody's interested and do nothing, or we could go out there and do something."

Updated: 11:32 Thursday, March 21, 2002