Former Millers chairman Booth dies

Scrap millionaire Mr Booth rescued the Millers from potential financial oblivion in 1987 and was chairman until December 2004, when the club was passed on to a succession of owners.

He died on Monday night, aged 91. Funeral details have yet to be announced.

Mr Booth’s reign at Millmoor was often cloaked in controversy, especially in his latter years.

The Booth family owned the club for 17 years but when they sold it nine years ago they had run up a £3m overdraft, the result of a Championship-size wage bill and the ITV Digital collapse.

They gave the club away for a peppercorn fee and wrote off the overdraft - but in exchange they took ownership of Millmoor, the Tivoli nightclub and the Hooton Lodge training ground.

It was a deal — especially the rental deal deal at Millmoor — which took the subsequent owners into more troubled waters until Tony Stewart took charge in 2008 and moved the club to Don Valley Stadium, prior to the development of the New York Stadium.

Mr Booth’s family wouldn’t comment this morning but it is understood that flags at C.F. Booth Ltd were flying at half mast.