Chester chairman David Harrington-Wright says Stuart Murphy’s £1million donation has handed the club a much-needed ‘lifeline’.

The Majorca-based entrepreneur will plough a risk-free million into Chester over the next three years, having felt the need to step in to help the cash-strapped Blues following their relegation from the National League.

Harrington-Wright – who took over as chairman in April – described himself as speechless when 64-year-old lifelong Blues fan Murphy told the club’s directors how much his commitment would be amount to over the three-year period.

“There are no words really to describe what Stuart has done for us,” he said.

“It’s a lifeline for the football club. It’s been a bad time for the club, two or three bad years in fact, but this is now an opportunity to put the past behind us and build a sustainable future for the football club. Clearly, we have not been running a sustainable model up to this point.

“Stuart approached us from the start about wanting to improve the infrastructure of the club and ways of making it self-sustainable. He never mentioned the money at the start, and never said he was going to donate a million.

“Stuart has not only made the donation, but his presence on the Operations Board and the business acumen he can bring to the table is invaluable.

“The skills set he has is vital for us and having that creative spark in and around the football club is going to be a huge boost to everyone.

“I’ve met him a few times now and he’s like a whirlwind. He’s got so many ideas, we must embrace those ideas and try to make as much of it work as possible.”

Harrington-Wright, who is City Fans United’s third chairman this year after a period of off-field turmoil, admits the Blues must now start producing the goods on the pitch and believes Anthony Johnson and Bernard Morley are the right management team to get the fans back onside.

He continued: “On the pitch, we’re all fans at the heart of it, and we want to see attractive football and see the team winning matches.

“It’s a win/win situation for the club and the supporters. We want to make the Deva somewhere where people want to come to again, where they enjoy themselves.

“Winning games will get the fanbase back on side, we know that, but this is an opportunity to build a substantial legacy.

“Bernard and Jonno came in and accepted the job with the reduced budget and they were happy to work to that and there was no mention of Stuart’s potential investment.

“They knew the limitations they’d be working to, but they are ambitious and want to get the club back up the divisions.”

It has been mooted that Murphy – who is based in Majorca for most of the year – will bring in a general manager to help run Chester on a day-to-day basis, something Harrington-Wright says would be preferential to brining in another chief executive, after the club’s previous CEO Mark Maguire parted company with the Blues in January. Maguire has since been appointed in a similar capacity at Hartlepool United.

“A general manager role hasn’t been discussed, but it is something the Operations Board will be talking about,” he added.

“We went down the chief exec role before and it didn’t work out well. But we’ll look at it in due course and Stuart has people in mind to come into the club and help with the running.

“Richard Lynes and Lawrence Kirby (directors) have put in an awful lot of hard work on the legal side to get this over the line, and now the hard work truly starts as we look to put projects in place for the use of Stuart’s donation.”