Bankies on brink of extinction

Creditors will meet in Glasgow this morning to decide the fate of the homeless club, which went into administration on 22 December last year.

A consortium led by David McGhie had tabled a bid to buy the club in July, but no rival offer has materialised, and as the sum does not match the creditors’ dues they are left facing a make-or-break" decision.

Clydebank, who have been reduced to a playing squad of 16, will be represented at the meeting in Glasgow by player-coach Fraser Wishart and captain Kenny Brannigan.

Wishart believes there is a 50/50 chance that the three major creditors - one of whose allegiance to the cause of saving the club he seriously questions - will be unable to divide McGhie’s offer to their collective satisfaction, and Clydebank will therefore fold.

The club, like Morton and Airdrie, have been on the brink of extinction for some time. But while the other two ailing clubs have greater assets - in terms of their stadia and playing staff - Wishart insists that Clydebank have a reliable prospective buyer.

Last Friday, after administrators Panell Kerr Forster announced that there was no money left in the kitty to pay the players’ monthly wages, McGhie’s consortium stepped in and footed the bill.

Wishart, the former Motherwell and Rangers player, sees this as concrete proof of their dedication to the cause, as that five-figure sum will not be refundable should the bid fail.

"This is their final offer, but it is the same one that has been on the table since July," he said last night. "The creditors have to knock together a deal about who will accept what share of the money, and have the chance to be known as the people who saved Clydebank, and will be forced to show their hand.

"It is in the balance. There is a real chance that the club will fold within 24 hours or by Friday. They may be given a day to think about it.

"I do wonder whether the creditors have the survival of the club at heart," he added. "I certainly think one of the main ones does not, and that is the main stumbling block.

"The worrying thing for me is that the creditors are under no obligation to turn up. But if one of them does not attend I hope a deal will be done by the rest of them and then submitted to him to respond to.

"He and his company will then have the finger pointed at them as the single entity that put Clydebank down."

Alloa Athletic last night beat the transfer deadline when they signed John McQuillan on loan from Dundee United.

Full back McQuillan, who played over 150 games in the Scottish Premier League with St Johnstone and United. will add much-needed experience to the side, at a time when defender Richard Huxford is injured.

A warehouse fire has burnt most of the football mementoes of former Rangers and St Mirren player Stuart Munro.

Munro said: "I [lost] videos of all the games I had played for Rangers, jerseys from every season, awards, programmes and photographs."

The Scot lost his coaching job this year when Melbourne club Carlton went bankrupt and he was in the throes of moving to Sydney at the time of the blaze.