THREE former bosses at Derby County who took more than £400,000 from the club have been told: Give the money back.

Fans have rounded on Andrew Mackenzie, Murdo Mackay and Jeremy Keith and demanded they repay the cash.

Keith, 44, a former Rams chief executive, was yesterday convicted of false accounting after helping to hide payments of £375,000 plus VAT.

It came 24 hours after ex-finance director Mackenzie and former director of football Mackay were convicted of defrauding the club, by conspiring to take the cash illegally.

The verdicts brought to an end an 18-month police investigation which covered four countries, and which saw more than 150 people quizzed.

John Hemsworth, chairman of Derby County Supporters' Clubs, said: "They were entrusted with looking after the club but took money for their own ends.

"It's totally unacceptable and not fair on the fans. The name of the club has been put through the wringer. The money should come back to Derby County."

Mackenzie, 55, of Burton Road, Littleover, had been associated with the club for 11 years. He came in for heavy criticism for his part in the conspiracy.

Mr Hemsworth, who helps to run 16 supporters' clubs, said: "You would think he, being from Derby and involved in the club for many years, would be a staunch Derby County person.

"He is the one that really surprises and disappoints me – he came across as a solid, reliable individual."

The three men were accused of illegally taking payments after they arranged a £15m loan for the Rams when a new consortium took control in October 2003.

The prosecution claimed they had taken the payments without permission of the club's board, and then deliberately hid them.

A fourth man, solicitor David Lowe, 58, of Boulevard des Moulins, Monaco, was found guilty of helping to launder £81,895 of the money.

Accountant Mark Waters, 48, of Bromley, Kent, who worked for the board at the time of the buyout, was found not guilty of false accounting.

A jury of seven men and five women deliberated for 30 hours before coming to their final decision in the four-month trial.

The defendants had denied all charges.

The jury was discharged from returning a verdict on another count faced by Keith, of Abingdon, Oxfordshire – that of conspiracy to defraud.

It is thought at least one of the defendants – Mackay, 53, of Fife – will appeal.

Senior investigating officer in the case, Detective Sergeant Ian Penman, said: "I am extremely pleased with the outcome. This was an important investigation because Derby County is an integral part of the local community.

"The team attracts crowds of 30,000 people to its home matches and I would imagine that the vast majority of those people would take an interest in the financial side of the business and how the money is spent.

"Customers clearly invest a lot of their hard earned cash into the club... so it was in the public interest that this allegation was investigated properly."

A Derby County spokesman said the end of the trial closed a "sorry chapter in the proud history" of the club, which will decide over the coming weeks whether it will try to reclaim the money.

Derbyshire police said it would look into getting the money back via the Proceeds of Crime Act.

The four defendants, who have all been bailed, will be sentenced at Northampton Crown Court, where the trial was held, on July 17.