LAST month we described the plan for a new football stadium on the outskirts of Worcester as ‘dead in the water’.

Today we reveal the club that intended to play at the stadium agrees.

Worcester City’s board says it no longer supports the planning application for a stadium at Nunnery Way, that talks with developers St Modwen have broken down, and that it wants out of the contract it has with the developers.

Worryingly, the club’s directors say they cannot safeguard the club unless it is released from the contract with St Modwen.

City has sold its St George’s Lane ground to developers Carey New Homes.

It has to vacate the land by 2013. The club is tied to a contract with St Modwen until 2017.

Moving to Nunnery Way would bankrupt Worcester City FC.

The priority now must be to find a way to release the football club from this contract and allow it to seek alternative sites for a new ground or to arrange a ground share with the likes of Evesham United.

There will be some supporters who have campaigned against the Nunnery Way plans for a number of years who have been critical of this newspaper’s previous support for the scheme.

We understand their exasperation. If it helps us to move forward, we say this to them: you were right, we were wrong.

What matters now is not bickering over the past but uniting to secure the future of Worcester City FC.

Everyone with influence in our city and/or affection for the football club has to be involved in this fight.

The city council has a vital part to play. It can make it clear that it has no intention of supporting any planning application for a stadium at Nunnery Way.

St Modwen also has a part to play and should consider whether holding the club to its contract is the right thing to do in both business and moral terms.