SHAREHOLDERS are being encouraged to enable the option of an outright takeover of Worcester City.

Those with a stake in the homeless club will vote on what is known as a drag along motion at a general meeting a week today (Thursday, December 12, 7pm) at Worcestershire County Cricket Club.

If passed, club directors would be able to sanction the sale of the entire club with the blessing of 60 per cent or more of the shareholding, the rest would then be required to sell at the price agreed.

It comes as City’s club and supporters’ trust boards try to rekindle the option of a move to Sixways Stadium but the motion is not specific to that deal and would remain in place come what may.

READ MORE | Club and trust hope to rekindle Sixways option

Like the vote to move to community ownership, the motion needs support from 75 per cent of the shareholding present or voting by proxy. Votes are weighted by the number of shares owned, meaning one shareholder with 3,000 shares has more clout than 10 with 100 each.

Worcester City Supporters' Trust owns 137,687 shares, around 46 per cent.

Chairman Dave Wood, also the director of the club who this week warned City is unlikely to survive two more seasons in exile, said: “In my opinion we should vote for it.

READ MORE | City "would be finished in two years" without Worcester return

“Without guiding people too far, the reason it has been put forward is that it enables change, for someone to buy it completely which was part of the Warriors’ philosophy.

“It can’t change at the moment, we can’t make it work and we have a two-year timeline. There is only so much income we can generate and offer the playing staff.

“We have to do something that enables change, without it I can’t see it surviving.”

The trust has advocated a fan-owned, one-share-one-vote model for many years and finally got its wish a year ago when shareholders voted for the gifting of all unallocated shares.

It means the trust acts as an umbrella organisation with overall control of major decisions while leaving the day-to-day running to the club board.

Asked whether he had any trepidation over giving up fan-owned status, Wood replied: “We have to look at it objectively, for the survival of the football club and its name.

“There is trepidation over anything, everything we do with Worcester City Football Club has had that for years as far as I can see.

“Some will pick fault but people have had the chance to give us feedback and that’s the most important thing because it is everyone’s football club.

“The trust is the majority shareholder and the members have an input.”

Club chairman Steve Goode added: “This drag along has been spoken about for some time, it gives us an option to go down that road.

“The reason things take a bit longer than people would like at times is because everything we do now is on the back of advice from people who understand what we need to do.

“Everything is done correctly, that’s the way it should be. I don’t want people coming back to me in three or four years saying we shouldn’t have done this or that.

“We discuss everything that comes in and it is good to have people on the board who have other views, you need people to put a dampener on something you might think is great at times, it can open your eyes.

“We all want the same thing, the most important thing, which is a future for our football club.”

Wood also said: “My long-term ambition of community ownership has come to fruition.

“We can have a meeting and talk to our fans and trust members like we did and give them an input is because we are community owned.

“That’s never happened before, in the past people didn’t have a choice until the last minute.

“Whatever the guidance was the chairman of the club would drive it down the route he wanted to go. There was no open debate about things.

“Now we are community owned we have succeeded in our goal of changing that and my next success would be to bring the club back home, that’s the view of the club and trust boards.

“We are one. Half the board of the club is made up of trust directors, we have a joint objective which is the survival of the football club. It is absolutely clear cut.”