An open informal meeting was held at the Rook Inn on Wednesday evening, where supporters heard an in-depth breakdown of the finances of the club, which was hours from going out of business at the start of the year. Fans heard from new group Rooks125 crucial information on how the loans from former owners Martin Elliott and Kevin Powell would be repaid.

Ed Ramsden, who dealt with the financial aspects of the handover, said: "When we took over the club there were two loans outstanding. One to Philcox Brothers Ltd and one to Kevin Powell. The one to Philcox Brothers Ltd was at £176,000 and the one to Kevin Powell was at £91,000.

"The terms of those debts going forward are that they bear no interest, they can't be recalled and we will make payments on those debts under two circumstances: first in the event of Lewes selling a player for more than £10,000, we will give a third of the proceeds to Philcox Brothers Ltd, a third of the proceeds to Kevin Powell, and keep a third for the club.

"And the the second circumstance is that the club gets to the first round proper of the FA Cup and then wins in that round – ie. gets to the second round of the FA Cup – then we'll pay 25 per cent of the FA prize fund for winning that round, and any subsequent round that we win, to Philcox Brothers Ltd, a further 25 per cent to Kevin Powell, and the club will keep 50 per cent.

"We also have £70,000 of loans from friends of the club in past which again bear no interest. (They) don't have a repayment schedule as yet, although we'll create one for those.

"And we have no any other debt. We've got some creditors which we're paying off but I feel we've been able to create a situation where all of our debt is quite benign at the moment.

"It's rare to see a football club which has debts which will never carry any interest and which the club never has a requirement to repay – except with Martin and Kevin with those specific windfall income (circumstances).

"So I don't want to curse anything but it feels to me like there has been a sword hanging over the club's head for quite a long period of time, and it feels like that has been removed."

Referring to their commitment to local creditors, felow Rooks125 member Charlie Dobres added: "There have been some suggestions in the past that the club goes into administration – and of course when you do that you screw local suppliers and we didn't want to do that.

"So a clear part of the agreement also was that outstanding trade creditors have (their debts) settled.

Mr Ramsden continued: "As part of the negotiation we agreed with Martin and Kevin that trade creditors that came up in the last couple of months of last season we would take those on, and any old trade creditors they agreed that they would take those on. And those, with one exception which we're working with Martin and Kevin on, those have been paid.

"Beacon Security, the club owned them about £10,000 and was quite an old debt. So Beacon Security which had started to become a bit vocal about being paid, have now been paid – by the former owners, not by us."

The new club chief executive added Nick Williams added: "One thing that is extremely important to us is that all suppliers are treated fairly and we intend that the situation will never happen again where someone gets owed money for a year, two years – because otherwise you can't call yourself a community club."

Those attending the open meeting were also told that the opportunity to become a member of the club would come about in roughly 12 months time from now. For £25 a year (although individuals can pay more should they wish) this gives fans "one member, one share, one vote" rights.

However, the Rook125 group said that, in the meantime, benefactors, individuals or businesses could donate £1,000 (again, or more should they wish) to become "founding members" of the new community club. This would effectively make them life members and, in return for their cash injection, members would receive two years' worth of season tickets.

Talking of the relatively sparse turnout, Rooks boss Steve Ibbitson said: "We would have though that a few more people would have come down. I hope that these people who haven't turned up, the reason is they're very happy with what's happening. It's important the people do come and join with us to take the club forward because we can't do it without the town. There's no point in us saying we want to turn the club over to the town if the town isn't interested.

Another Rooks125 member, Patrick Marber, said: "We've been doing this over the six to nine months, figuring out how to make Lewes FC safe.

This all happened because of the HMRC debt and the terrifying prospect of the club, after 125 years, ceasing to exist. We all got together with a shared love of the club and decided to do whatever we could to save the club from extinction. We figured out that the best way to ensure the survival of the club was to make it a supporter-owned club, a community club."