WELLING United owner Barrie Hobbins says the crisis club should be able to pay the Inland Revenue another £15,000 of their debt by the end of this week.

The Wings have been served with a winding up petition, with an initial hearing set to take place next Wednesday.

They made an initial £30,000 down payment last week and the additional £15,000 will ensure Welling have met half of the £90,000 owed to the tax authorities.

Mr Hobbins confirmed: “We’ve paid £30,000 already and we will have in place another £15,000 by the end of this week.

“There has been all sorts of fundraising going on and donations coming in since last Friday.

“The £45,000 takes it to the halfway point. In that figure of £90,000, you’ve now got things which come in like your interest and other things that get added on by the week.

“The club needs all the support it can get because it is important for the locality Welling United continues and we’ve got every reason to think it will do.”

Despite the latest developments, Mr Hobbins conceded he is not sure whether it will be enough to satisfy HMRC, although Welling have secured the services of a tax specialist to make their case.

He said: “I can’t give a truthful answer because I’m really in the background at the moment since we put it in the hands of a tax specialist who knows a lot more than I do.

“She wasn’t sure we would get a dismissal of the petition but she did say she felt an adjournment would be the normal procedure, in which case we would buy time to put the other plans we have into action.

“I sent her 18 pages of correspondence we have from HMRC and she phoned me on Friday asking me to put forward a realistic cash flow projection.

“Whereas it might take me a day to look at 18 pages and work it all out, within an hour she had spoken to someone at HMRC and told me not to think of it as a lost cause by a long way.

“They may or may not co-operate immediately because they may say I want this and not that or change the time schedule, but she has all the facts and figures to hand and can obviously deal with it a lot more efficiently than I ever could.”

Mr Hobbins remains optimistic the problems can be resolved but was the first to acknowledge there still is a chance the club could go to the wall on August 25.

He said: “If we lost the case and the winding up order was given next Wednesday, I imagine that would be the case.

“At this moment in time the club wouldn’t need to go to court, it would only be the representative to request an adjournment if she doesn’t reach an agreement in the meantime.

“I think it is unlikely and it is the worst case scenario but you can never say never in this world.”