A TAKEOVER deal to secure the future of struggling Malvern Town Football Club has been agreed.

Your Malvern Gazette can reveal that club officials have accepted a takeover offer from the Save Malvern Town Football Club Consortium (SMTFCC).

The consortium emerged with an 11th-hour bid to save the club when it emerged it was riddled with debt and faced being forced to sell its Langland Stadium home. The group has now been given the official goahead to take over and plough investment into the club to save it from bankruptcy and clear its debts – which amount to more than £200,000 in total to creditors including Marstons Brewery and HM Revenues and Customs.

The consortium’s identity has to date been kept a closely-guarded secret. But your Malvern Gazette can today exclusively reveal the identity of the two local men at the forefront of efforts to save the club.

They are businessman Chris Pinder, the 28-yearold owner of Malvern Linkbased technology company HD Connectivity, and Ted Grizzell, aged 23, owner of Zig Zag coaching and an academy coach at West Bromwich Albion.

On a technical level the takeover will see Malvern Town transformed from a members club into a private company. Shares will be issued and the consortium will take ownership of club assets such as the stadium and social club.

The consortium will now start negotiations with individual creditors to arrange clearing the club’s debt.

While the takeover is the most sweeping change in the club’s 67-year history, SMTFCC is reassuring supporters it will not be tearing up the history books and throwing away years of tradition.

In the short-term the group wants to ensure the club is on sure-footing both on and off the pitch. But they also have “big ideas” for investment and improvements that they hope will steer the club through the leagues and re-establish it at “the pinnacle” of local football in Malvern.

“It will no longer be a club run by the members, it will be run by a management team,” said Mr Pinder.

“But we don’t want to take anything away, we only want to add. We want to reassure people that this club will be enhanced by our involvement.”

Malvern Town spokesman John Banner confirmed to the Gazette this week that committee members have accepted the SMTFCC proposal.

“It had reached the stage where we had to do something and I was very impressed with their enthusiasm, professionalism and vision for the club,” he said.

“It is good news and it gives the club a real chance of a positive new start.

“My ambition remains to see the club playing in a brand new stadium a stone’s throw from where they are now. This could be a step along that road.”