YORK Wasps Rugby League Club have sensationally folded.

The directors have informed the Rugby Football League (RFL) that the club ceased to trade as of last night, and all forthcoming fixtures have been called off.

If a saviour is not found to take on the running of the Northern Ford Premiership club immediately, the Wasps - who have been involved in professional rugby league for more than a century - will have played their last match.

The news comes only a week after York City Football Club was saved from extinction and six months after Wasps announced a sponsorship deal with the New York Economic Development Council (NYEDC), which apparently gave the rugby club a rosy future.

Now it appears that by closing the club down with immediate effect, the door has not been left open for a rescue package.

RFL spokesman John Huxley told the Evening Press that an urgent meeting with Wasps officials had been arranged for today.

Wasps chairman John Stabler delivered the bombshell to coach Leo Epifania and the players before the scheduled training session at 7pm yesterday.

Vice-chairman Russell Greenfield said the decision was taken in the face of dwindling crowds and lower-than-expected sponsorship.

The New York sponsorship deal, brokered by sports advertising company World Rugby League, had not worked out.

"We were promised sponsorship money that would have seen us through this season and some way through next season, but we've only received so much money, nowhere near what we were promised," he claimed.

The Evening Press has not been able to get a comment from NYEDC and World Rugby League.

Wasps chief executive Ann Garvey said the directors did not want the club to get into the debt-ridden state of recent years and so took the decision to close it.

"I am a heartbroken woman," she said. "I feel so sorry for the players and the coach."

York's only other professional sports club, York City FC, was saved last week after motor racing tycoon John Batchelor bought the club from its former owners, who had threatened to close it down.

Stabler and Greenfield had also bid to buy the football club and its Bootham Crescent ground, with a view to a ground-share and improved links between City and Wasps.

When that bid was announced, Stabler said he and Greenfield saw themselves as guardians of professional sport in York.

Today, Greenfield told the Evening Press that the death knell sounded for the Wasps after their bid to buy City fell through.

Had it been successful, Greenfield reckons the deals involved - plus sponsorship that would have gone hand in hand with a ground-share between the clubs - would have secured the future of the rugby club.

"We first tried to buy the (Huntington Stadium) ground to get finance, but the council wouldn't let us," Greenfield said.

"We then tried to buy York City so we could ground-share and go forward with that.

"It was not our money that would have bought York City; it was brokered deals, deals that would have helped the rugby club. But our bid was not successful.

"I tried everything I knew in business to keep it going and so did my colleagues, but it did not work.

"We tried to get local sponsorship but nobody wanted to know. After much soul-searching, we decided we had to close the club.

"We had a great board, but basically the club haven't had the kind of support York City got. When they were in trouble everybody rallied round, but when we were nobody rallied.

"John Stabler is absolutely gutted. He started supporting York as a boy and he tried everything to keep the club going."

Ryedale MP John Greenway, who has the Huntington Stadium within his constituency, said today: "It's very sad news, but not entirely surprising. It's symptomatic of what is going on at the lower end of professional sport.

"At the top end, rugby league has never been so popular and wealthy, but when you are playing in front of a few hundred fans you cannot run a club on that basis."

York MP Hugh Bayley said: "This is terrible news. We have only just found a secure future for York City, and now this comes and stings us."

The Lord Mayor of York, Councillor Irene Waudby, said: "I think we have all been aware the club has been struggling to get on to a firm financial footing for some time, but this is still very sad news."

Former players from the club's glory days were shocked and upset.

"I just cannot believe it," said Walter Rawson, aged 80, who played for York between 1939 and 1948 and who is treasurer of the ex-players association. "I didn't think it was as bad as that."

He said he used to play in front of crowds of up to 10,000 at the old ground in Clarence Street.

"I think it was a huge mistake moving from Clarence Street. It was right in the heart of the city, and buses ran past all the time and people could walk there."

Denzil Webster, who is association secretary and played for York between 1956 and 1959 in front of crowds of up to 6,000, said: "I'm very sad. It wasn't expected."

Updated: 10:53 Wednesday, March 20, 2002