WITH Dover Athletic’s place in the Dr Martens League Premier Division next season now confirmed, chairman Mick Kemp has issued a strong call for greater backing from members of the club’s Supporters’ Trust.

At present the Supporters’ Trust, which has a representative on the main board, have almost 500 members but only 80 are making a monthly financial contribution.

Kemp said: “Now that we have been accepted in the Dr Martens League we need serious backing from individual members of the Supporters’ Trust, which will give us the time to increase the income we receive from fund-raisers like the Striker Lottery.

“I also need people who are willing to pick up the Centre Spot bar at Crabble and make it earn money for the club. I have got contacts with agents who can get acts down here for things like cabaret nights, but I can’t do it all alone.

“As has been said elsewhere, if you are a Dover fan who is still sitting on the fence when it comes to helping the club in some way, now is the time to get off it and lend a hand.”

With the new board having to deal with debts in the region of £400,000, Kemp revealed that the club had applied for a Company Voluntary Arrangement (CVA).

The club need 75 per cent of their creditors to accept the CVA, under which Whites would pay a set sum every year for five or six years to an independent nominee, who would then organise paying off the various debts.

Kemp said: “Basically, the CVA is a way of ring fencing your debts. The debts we had incurred say, up to April 31, will be moved to one side for the nominee to take care.

“We will then feed him an agreed sum on the same date every year until the debts are paid off. What it means is that the debt becomes manageable, but in the meantime we have to make sure that we don’t build up any new debts.

“We were left with only three real courses of action: to pray that somebody would come along and say, ‘here’s a million pounds for you’; to go into liquidation and disappear; or to seek a CVA, and I think it is a route that a lot of clubs in a similar situation to us will be taking. ”

The various creditors have been invited to a meeting organised by the nominee, Mr Richard Rones of Thornton Rones Business Recovery and Insolvency Services, at Ilford on Tuesday. Kemp added: “You need 75 per cent of the creditors to agree to it, and I understand that some have already.”

Kemp is working hard to try to find new major sponsors for the club and said: “There are serious discussions going on at present with three different companies, two of which are not local.”

He also plans to contact former manager Neville Southall to see if a suitable role could be found for him back at Crabble. He said: “I know Neville is not interested in a commercial role, but I am thinking more along the lines of a Director of Football, in charge of things like a youth academy.”

Meanwhile, Dover have been drawn at home to Folkestone Invicta in the first round of the Dr Martens League Cup.