DARLINGTON Football Club today enters the most important week in its 121-year history as creditors weigh up a £150,000 offer to save the Quakers.

A meeting of creditors will take place on Wednesday and will be followed the next day by former chairman George Reynolds' bankruptcy hearing.

A company voluntary arrangement (CVA) proposal worth £150,000 has been put to creditors.

If accepted, it would pave the way for the Sterling Consortium to take control of the club.

Mr Reynolds has vowed to use his position as the largest creditor on paper to block the deal.

He has yet to submit a substantiated claim for what he is owed to administrators Wilson Field.

Other major creditors have not submitted claims either, but will have to do so by noon tomorrow.

Some creditors have already responded, with decisions both for and against the Sterling proposal.

But Mr Reynolds' vote will be the crucial one if his claim is satisfactorily backed up.

He says he is owed £20m, although the last audited accounts, for April 2002, show that directors' loans stand at £5.6m.

If Mr Reynolds were declared bankrupt at the hearing on Thursday, his vote on the deal would pass to a trustee appointed to look after his affairs.

Quakers manager David Hodgson has also yet to make a claim, but administrator David Field said: "My understanding is that, assuming the CVA is approved, he will not request any money."

Sterling is to acquire the business and assets of the club in a £700,000 deal no matter what.

But a CVA must be secured in order for the Football League to transfer Darlington's share to the new owners of the club.

Read more about the Quakers here.