THE threat of Chesham receiving a winding-up order is set to be removed after United's board of directors agreed to pay the club's VAT bill.

The club were at one point within days of being wound up according to new chairman Brian McCarthy, speaking at the Fans Forum on Thursday, September 8.

But now the club have agreed to pay the £11,000 bill, as well as negotiating payment terms for their £19,000 income tax bill.

That will now be paid back at £1,000 a month but, along with a playing budget of £2,000 a month and bank-loan repayments at £1,100 a month, the board are desperate for more money to come into the club to help keep Chesham running.

McCarthy said: "I want to pay all of our debts and then go forward. We can't do that unless all of our debts are repaid.

"I want us to be a community club but this works both ways.

"Most of our sponsors don't even come from Chesham. The attitude we had from businesses is they've been shafted over the years and still think they're not going to sponsor us.

"We've somehow got to get round that.

"We've got a good team of directors and an excellent team of supporters."

The fans forum came up with money-spinning activities, including fireworks' evenings and pop concerts, as well as the need for increased sponsorship.

McCarthy, who came into the club at the start of last season, said: "We were told to come in and increase the sponsorship because we wanted to get into Conference South.

"The previous year, the sponsorship of the club was £4,000. We increased that last year to £40,000. Throughout the season, the players' budget didn't increase and we wondered where the £40,000 was going. We didn't know the financial situation. We haven't had our heads in the sand. We asked the questions and were given the answers we wanted to hear. The possibilities were to go into receivership, which would move us at least two leagues down or go into administration, which would lose us ten points.

"The last thing we want to do is to go down to the South Midlands.

"The first £26,000 of sponsorship is just to pay debts."

The club are now planning to hold meetings on the first Thursday of every month to look at ways of increasing revenue.

But one money-spinning hope was lost when the team lost 1-0 at home to Bedford in the first round of the FA Cup.

Chesham missed out on £2,250 in prize money for that round, while a good run could have netted thousands.

The Meadow Men fell behind to an 11th-minute strike by Matt Murphy and it got worse when Dave Fotheringham was sent off after 30 minutes for kicking Robbie Beard.