Darlington FC campaign fund hits quarter-way mark in four days (From The Northern Echo)

Darlington FC campaign fund hits quarter-way mark in four days

8:00am Tuesday 21st February 2012 in News By Joe Willis, Regional chief reporter

THE Buy Darlo campaign last night passed the quarter-way stage, prompting hopes that the Quakers could be removed from administration sooner than expected.

More than £213,000 has already been invested in Darlington FC 1883 Ltd – the company launched to buy the football club and prevent it from being liquidated.

Despite the fundraising drive only being announced on Friday, the shares issue has now raised more than 25 per cent of the £750,000 target.

Last night, Mark Meynell, from DFC 1883, described the response from supporters as fantastic. Mr Meynell said he had spoken to administrator Harvey Madden yesterday, who recognised that the fundraising drive had started extremely well.

He said that if the fundraising continued at this pace, talks about bringing the club out of administration could start soon.

Although no timeframe has yet been decided, he said: “We need to get this club out of administration and give it the freedom to operate properly.

“If the fundraising continues, we may be able to come out of administration quicker than we thought we would.

We would urge anyone minded to invest to come forward.”

The fans’ group was yesterday working on ways of allowing fans to invest using cash and cheques. One plan is to register the shares in a supporters’ group name, then transfer the interest later.

Further details are expected to be announced later this week. Work on a proposal to encourage businesses to invest is also under way.

It comes after The Northern Echo announced yesterday that it was investing £10,000 in the company.

Mr Meynell said: “We are now preparing a commercial proposal for commercial investors.

We wanted to get the crowd funding model in place so fans could start investing as soon as possible, but we need a different approach to attract businesses.”

Anyone wanting to invest more than £1,000 in shares can email questions@buydarlo.org for help. For information on how to buy shares in Darlington FC 1883 Ltd, click here