FRANTIC fund-raising efforts to save Dover Athletic Football Club from folding have made a promising start.

Shocked fans have started a backs-to-the wall battle to come up with the £48,000 the club say they must raise by December 31 or face bankruptcy.

Whites have been hit by a triple whammy in the shape of a demand for £23,000 from the Inland Revenue and Customs and Excise, a further £13,000 demand from the VAT office, and a shortfall on budgeted gate receipts this season of about £12,000.

But the first day of the appeal alone saw £5,000 raised, with £2,000 profits arising from the David Elleray evening and a further £3,000 being donated by fans.

A fighting fund has been created, overseen by a three-man group of trustees, including Dover Town Centre manager Mike Webb. Donations will be returned if the club fails to raise the whole sum and is wound up.

In addition, an online payment facility has been set up on the club’s website using PayPal, and money has been coming in from around the globe, including £100 from a previously unknown well-wisher in Portugal.

Finance director Steve Cattermole corrected reports stating that Whites needed to find about £25,000 to satisfy a VAT demand stretching back over three years on hot food sold at the ground.

Mr Cattermole said: “The figure for VAT is nearer half the £25,000 being quoted. The remainder is down to a shortfall on everyday expenses that has arisen.”

The latter problem stems from falling gates this season. Whites pulled in an average of 566 fans per game in the first eight home fixtures this season, about 100 below the club’s original break-even figure and about 250 fewer than the 800 they now say they need.

The rest of the £48,000 consists of £23,000 payable under the notorious Modification Five of the club’s Company Voluntary Arrangement (CVA).

It represents 50 per cent of the profits from the club’s run to the FA Cup first round in 2002-3 when they lost 1-0 to Oxford United in front of a record gate of more than 4,000 at Crabble.

Mr Cattermole is still unsure whether the amount is in addition to the club’s £120,000 total CVA burden, or whether it is an accelerated payment that could eventually bring the CVA to an end a year early - if the club survives that long.

Mr Cattermole said that in all likelihood the club would be faced with a winding up order if it failed to raise the required sum by the end of the year.

It would then have about another month to come up with the money or face extinction.

Speculation has already started over whether another club would be started up if Dover Athletic does fold, but chairman Mick Kemp warned: “If a new club was formed, it would probably have to start at the bottom of the local non-league pyramid, which in our case is the Kent County League.

“And, to be honest, with the overheads involved in the upkeep of Crabble, playing in front of 50 people in the Kent County League just wouldn’t be a viable proposition.”

However, the Go Travel Kent League, one step above this and currently short of clubs, is another, more attractive, possibility.