SUPPORTERS’ hopes of taking over the ownership of Worcester City could be realised this summer after a meeting to decide on the club’s future was called.

City’s board has received a request by Worcester City FC Supporters’ Trust to vote on changing the constitution of the club.

The extraordinary general meeting (EGM) will give shareholders the chance to choose whether City should stay as a limited company or follow in the footsteps of Portsmouth, Exeter City and FC United of Manchester to become a fan-owned club.

Chairman Anthony Hampson and his directors have until June 10 to set a date for the vote which is expected to be held in early July.

Trust director Rich Widdowson welcomed the news, as he believes a change in ownership model will keep City, who have about £530,000 left in the bank, alive.

“I am pleased (a meeting will take place) because people need to be given a choice of which route they want to take,” he said.

“The trust has a survival plan, so people can now decide to either go with that or keep the club as it is.

“The club will go out of existence (if it stays as it is) because it has lost all of its assets.”

He added: “We don’t mind who runs the club, but we have got a problem with how it is run, so things that have happened in the past can’t happen again, such as the club being signed into deals which don’t benefit it.”

The “survival plan” includes an application to create a 4,100-capacity stadium for City, who have been in exile since 2013, at Perdiswell Park.

The trust say making City a Community Benefit Society (CBS) would help them raise capital for the new ground and to negotiate with the council to use the land at Perdiswell.

Widdowson said he was unaware the club’s board had an alternative plan, but vice-chairman Colin Layland revealed there was a “Plan B” which they were not prepared to make public until the stadium application had been heard by Worcester City Council.

“As far as we are concerned, Perdiswell is our preferred option, and until the council sort everything out we won’t be looking at a Plan B,” Layland said.

“We have got a Plan B, but we won’t be disclosing it before Perdiswell has been sorted.”

Widdowson also claimed Hampson mentioned “more than once” about the possibility of folding the club. Although Hampson failed to respond to the Worcester News, director Mike Davis insisted that was “out of the question”.

“It could be called an option, but you could not imagine that the majority of shareholders would want that to happen,” he said.

Davis, who is also a club representative on the trust’s board, added: “The trust’s attitude is that there is no point in waiting (for a meeting) and there is no reason why we shouldn’t become a community-owned club.

“But at the moment we are a limited company with shareholders and for every share they have got, they have got a vote, so it is in their hands.”

Members of the trust plan to hold an open meeting with shareholders two weeks before the EGM to discuss their proposal.