Frustrated members of an under-threat Navy Club have vowed to fight attempts to sell the building from under them.

Anyone who has served or is serving in the Royal or Merchant Navy or any of its branches is being asked to join the Maryport branch of the Royal Navy Association to vote to stop the sale.

The Maryport Navy Club Ltd called an emergency meeting on Tuesday after discovering, last week, that association wants to sell the building and close the club.

This week around 50 angry members attended the special meeting only to be told that the Maryport Navy Club Ltd, does not appear to exist and therefore may have no rights over its future.

Former chairman Mike Messenger said the limited company was supposed to have been set up in the 1980s but it appears that it was never officially registered which means it has little legal standing.

Older club members confirmed that this was the belief at the time.

The building is owned by the association.

RNA minutes which might clear up the situation are held in a locked box by the RNA in a room above the club.

Members were prepared to break the box open to get the minutes but Mr Messenger said when that had been tried before there were threats of getting the police involved.

"We can't do anything illegal," he said.

The club committee has been asked to find its own old minutes to try and establish when the limited company was formed and why it had not been registered.

The club has 800 members on its books.

It appears there is a growing rift between club and association which may have contributed to the possibility of the club being sold.

Members claimed on Wednesday that the small number of association members left were not willing to see the club progress.

Mr Messenger said: "The flat above the club is going to ruin. The house next door was up for sale.

"If we could do up the flat and buy the house that would give us two more streams of income but they won't entertain it."

The committee was also concerned that the association members would not answer questions or speak to them directly and had even started meeting outside the club at the sea cadets' rooms.

Last week chairman of the Royal Naval Association Brian Mossom said the association would not be commenting about the likely sale of the club but added: "The Navy Club has been struggling for some time now and that is all I am prepared to say."

Club chairman Stuart Denwood said the club was holding its own.

He said a representative of the national branch of the Royal Navy Association has agreed to come to Maryport early in the new year to discuss the matter.