"Unless things change very quickly, we have decided we can't afford to pay any player wages and will therefore rely on a team of promising youngsters.

"I have been warning of the dire financial situation of the club for a long, long time, but now the chickens have well and truly come home to roost.

"This is 1976 all over again, – we took the same decision then and look how the club went forward from that point."

Management committee members are putting in place a number of strategies to make the best of things.

They will shortly launch a club donor scheme where supporters and others will be asked to give what they can to the club – redeemable against shares in the club when the invitation to buy shares is launched after negotiations are concluded.

More details will be announced in the Observer and on this website in the coming weeks.

In addition, the club's marketing, promotional and fundraising operations will be revamped, and an upgrade to the social club is in the offing to maximise the income from that.

Club secretary Simon Cook said: "Clearly we find ourselves in a tricky situation and if a large investor or investors were to come forward over the next few weeks, we'd be delighted to sit down and talk to them.

"I'd appeal to anyone who might feel in a position to do this to contact the club.

"This may or may not happen, so we have to work very hard to put our own house in financial order and raise our overall income from as many different sources as possible.

"It may mean we cannot stay at this level of football over the next few seasons, but if that proves to be the springboard for even greater success in the future then the pain may be worth the gain."