Martin Elliott has made one final appeal for help as Lewes approach D-Day.

The Rooks are back in the High Court next Wednesday to face a winding-up petition brought by HM Revenue and Customs.

The case has twice been adjourned which has given Lewes the opportunity to reduce the debt from £107,000 to £47,000 in just four months.

However, HMRC are pushing for the balance of the debt next week and a further adjournment is unlikely.

There have been people interested in getting involved with Lewes for a while and more people have emerged in the last couple of months.

Elliott has now appealed to one of them to make the next step by turning their interest into a firm offer of help to finally deal with the winding-up petition.

He said: “We are looking for people to loan money and people to make a donation.

“We had a useful meeting over Christmas and New Year with regards to people who are interested in helping out but it will go to the wire like the last two.

“I hope there is no complacency around, people thinking this is the third time they have been to court, they were okay in the previous two and they will be okay this time.

“The worrying thing is if people are standing off and looking for other people to come in not knowing realising how serious this is.

“If someone was in a position to loan us the money there are a number of people who are involved in the club who could guarantee it and then we could be done with HMRC next week.

“At the moment it may well be three or four again who will rally around, find £20,000, put some sort of case to the judge and see what happens.

“This is a last plea. We don’t know what we are going to be able to find before next Wednesday and clearly we need to put forward something by then.

“One or two people have asked the question what would the situation be if they were to put in a loan and my answer would be let’s sit around the table and talk about it.

“We have been talking to one or two new people and if they were to make a commitment I think there would be other people in line behind them.”

Lewes have been paying off the debt at £10,000 a month, having made an initial down payment of £30,000 just prior to the first hearing at the start of September.

They have yet to pay the December instalment while they consider what they can do before Wednesday’s hearing.

A previous HMRC offer to lift the winding-up petition if the debt was reduced to £27,000 is no longer an option and the £9,000 Lewes earned in FA Trophy winnings in December is not available to them as that money is not paid until they go out of the competition.

The Rooks are due to play Kidderminster in the last 32 of the Trophy tomorrow, although that match will almost certainly be off. The postponement of Wednesday’s league game at home to Eastleigh due to a frozen pitch has not helped either in terms of cash flow.

Elliott, who is also in the process of finalising a share issue to help the club, knows they have to make some sort of payment before Wednesday or the club is likely to be wound-up.

He said: “The preferred option is we find £20,000 and somebody lends us £27,000 and we could be done with it on Wednesday.

“The fall-back position is we find £20,000 and argue our case. If we can’t find £20,000 we are hoisted.

“If we made a payment of £20,000 at the beginning of next week, I’m not sure how hard HMRC would push and what the judge would do. I would like to think they would act in the interests of the tax payers and give us a bit more time to square it completely.

“We are up to date with the current financial year. We have made lots of changes and cost-savings for the better and if we can get through this things will look good for the start of next season.

“If we could get over this last hurdle we would have achieved an awful lot but at the moment I don’t know how we will get over this last hurdle.”