HALESOWEN Town fans, led by chairman Karen Brookes and president Colin Brookes, have launched a fundraising scheme to help finance a takeover of the club.

Around 200 supporters attended a meeting on Sunday to hear about the current financial situation at The Grove and how the Brookes family plan to acquire the club from its current owners.

The Yeltz are currently owned by the Lynch family, which took over in 2011 and helped save the club from collapse.

However, continued anger and frustration at how the club is being run has led to takeover plans gathering pace in recent months.

The situation was made worse at the start of the season when former chairman and owner Steve Lynch was banned from football activity for two years by the Football Association.

The Yeltz were fined and Lynch banned following an investigation into rule breaches.

The charges, three for Lynch and nine of the club, include issues surrounding Lynch's former involvement with Eastwood Town and his alleged failure to disclose his interest in the Yeltz at the same time.

Other charges for the club included breaches of rules regarding a loan in 2012 and problems with the reporting of accounts covering from October 2011 to March 2013.

Now, Karen Brookes and father Colin have called on fans to help raise £30,000 towards the cost of buying the club.

Karen Brookes explained: "Initially it's all about claiming the club from the present owners.

"I've seen from my time at the club that things need to change. There is potential for the club to be self-sufficient but you have to have everything in place for that to happen.

"It's now about the long-term sustainability of the club. We eventually want to return it to the fans.

"We've put money into the club and will have to do that again for the rest of the season but we now need the fans to support us to get their club back.

"We need fans through the gates and we need fans to support the fundraising too.

"The majority of fans want the ownership to change, that is our main reason for this. It's a club with a long and rich history since 1873, including a lot of ups and downs over the last 10 years, and we want to put it back on an even keel once more.

"Financially it probably isn't worth the money we will pay but it's worth it to be able to secure it for the fans."

Supporters wanting to back the drive can visit justgiving.com/crowdfunding/halesowentown to make a donation.

Brookes also added that there are still a number of options available even if a deal can't be done, including dropping down in level by forming a new club and using the money raised to start again. Though the preferred option is to do a deal with Lynch in the coming weeks.