KAREN Adams says her father and grandfather would have been very proud to see Wycombe Wanderers returned to the fans this week.

The granddaughter of the club's benefactor says it feels as though a weight has been lifted from her mind after owner Steve Hayes agreed to hand the club back to its supporters after four years in charge.

She said: "I am very happy. I think the club’s future has been secured. The people involved with the Trust have done amazingly well and it has happened because of their real commitment to the club.

"I think my father Jack Adams (and grandfather Frank) would be very pleased.

"It was an amazing feeling when the deal went through. It was a like a weight had been lifted."

As part of the deal she has been made president of the Frank Adams Legacy Ltd, a body set up to safeguard the club’s future at Adams Park - in the same way that her grandfather, a former player secured the club’s future when he handed the deeds of their old Loakes Park ground over to the club in 1947.

She wasn’t happy when the club sold out to multi-millionaire Hayes and felt the club lost its way when it renamed the ground the Causeway Stadium as part of a sponsorship deal, which was not repeated after an outcry from fans.

She said: "I was quite upset when Steve Hayes wanted to take over the club, I found that very difficult.

"Wycombe wasn’t the club to attract rich benefactors, it is a club for the supporters and I am delighted it is going back to that."

Hayes put the club into debt chasing the dream of promotion to the second tier of English football. But it turned sour. Promotion was never achieved and the club was relegated back to the bottom division last season with mounting debts.

She said: "I think Steve Hayes has been a good owner for the football club. I don’t want to criticise what he’s done but I couldn’t see a way out of the debt. The insecurity was a worry to everyone. "

But she sounded a note of caution as the club enters a new era.

She said: "It’s going to be difficult for the club to prosper. Supporters will have to be patient.

"The Trust has to work hard to bring people back to the football club and that’s the way it will survive. We have all got to muck in and help it prosper and I would urge all of those people who may have become disillusioned with the club to come back and watch live football first hand in a really good stadium."