CHAIRPERSON Paula Henley has warned Wimborne Town could go bust with the club hemorrhaging around £8,000 per month.

Due diligence has uncovered debts of around £110,000 and new chief Henley has issued a "cry for help" to stop the Southern One South & West club going under, writes Andy Mitchell.

"If nothing was to change, we might as well close the doors now," she warned.

"I am dependent on help from people in a voluntary capacity to get everything running as it needs to."

Manager Simon Browne's £1,000-per-week playing budget is set to be axed within a fortnight and the Dorset club - winners of the FA Vase in 1992 - have also made a full-time staff member redundant.

Henley anticipates being able to save the 138-year-old club without an immediate cash injection, but confirmed that payment to players would cease unless funds could be found.

She told the (Bournemouth) Daily Echo: "We have three options. The first is just to fold and disappear, which nobody wants.

The second is to enter a CVA (creditors' voluntary arrangement), but that has ramifications in terms of points deductions, or we look at what we have, steady the ship and move on.

"A financial injection would certainly be welcomed but, by cutting unnecessary spend, I believe we can make it through to the end of the season without it."

Around £50,000 of the debt has been described as "friendly loans" from parties prepared to wait for their money. The rest is owed to creditors who are being repaid on an ongoing basis.

"Everyone is paid to date," added Henley, who confirmed she did not anticipate any winding-up petitions in the near future.

"We don't owe the taxman so it is not horrible debt, it can be managed with the right approach," she said.

Henley also insisted that voluntary relegation to the Sydenhams Wessex League was not on the agenda.

"I don't know if I am speaking from the head or the heart, but we do not want to go down to the Wessex League," she added.

"If it became a question of that or nothing then, of course, it would have to be considered, but nothing we are doing in terms of trying to secure the future of the club is with relegation in our minds."