DOVER Athletic fans have given their enthusiastic backing for a plan to set up the club's own Supporters' Trust. A special meeting of the Supporters' Club voted overwhelmingly in favour of setting up a trust under which Whites fans would raise money for the club in return for having a representative on the board.

The meeting was addressed by two officials from Supporters' Direct, the Government-funded body set up to encourage the development of Supporters' Trusts throughout the country. There are now 42 Supporters' Trusts in existence and Brian Lomax, chairman of Supporters' Direct, said a Trust must be open to all the club's fans with "an affordable yearly subscription which is usually equivalent to the cost of attending one match" - in Dover's case £8.

Members are then free to buy as many shares in the club as they wish, with the Trust being awarded a seat on the board.

Lomax added: "Dover's last annual general meeting in April passed a resolution authorising the issue of 750,000 new £1 shares, and so that is already in place."

Simon Harris, co-chairman of the Supporters' association, said: "We don't know how the club will react to the idea of a Supporters' Trust because we haven't got a board of directors at the moment, but one of my complaints has always been that we have never known what is going on at the club.

"If we Dover Athletic to survive and go forward, then we - as supporters - need to help in any way that we can."