CHAIRMAN Steve Goode moved to allay fears that Worcester City’s quest for community ownership could be scuppered by shareholders.

Under its current constitution, no one person or entity can own more than one per cent of the club.

Proposals put forward in July 2016 to lift the cap was voted down, preventing Worcester City Supporters’ Trust from collectively gaining the clout to move towards a one-share-one-vote system.

The trust is a community benefit society which sees members have equal voting rights on key decisions.

Voting on club matters is weighted by the number of shares and company law dictates more than 75 per cent of shareholders must vote through constitutional change.

The other changes sought two years ago included a stop to new shares being offered to existing shareholders first, for all unallocated shares to be allotted to the trust and for scope to be given to owners to gift their stakes to the trust.

Each resolution was voted against by more than 50 per cent of the shareholding at the time.

The question of whether such plans could be gunned down again was raised at Saturday’s fans’ forum but Goode anticipates a more positive outcome with the board's full backing.

“Hopefully those people who put us in position (on the board) were those who voted against us previously,” said Goode.

“There are still people I need to speak to and I will. I am going to put on the table what I think should be done and I am hoping they agree.

“Let’s say there were 20 people stopping it, there are about six left. It is still a possibility it could go the other way but if that was the case, why would they have put us in this position? That’s how I look at it.”

Goode went on to say “99 per cent of the people that voted against do not attend shareholders’ meetings” with the question asked from the floor whether proxy votes could be collected.

“Yes, that’s we would do,” replied Goode.

Concerns were raised over shares held by people who had since died but director Dave Wood explained the club had a “clear knowledge of the shareholder count” up to the past three or four months.