GRAYS Athletic would have ceased to exist within six months without drastic financial cutbacks, chairman Mike Woodward has claimed.

The colourful Woodward has asked his players and staff to take 50 per cent pay cuts this week after the club’s three main sponsors – the identity of whom the club has refused to reveal – withdrew their support.

The withdrawals came as the club struggles near the bottom of the Blue Square Premier Division table in front of an average home gate of 665 – a staggering 27 per cent down on last season's average of 919.

And Woodward, who has been in charge at the New Rec since 2000 and has polarised supporters’ opinion with his regular outspoken comments, said thing would only have got worse without immediate action.

“We have to look at our attendances and had to look at our position,” said the self-made rail labour company boss.

“Are we lying 10th in the league and could we maybe attract two or three hundred more supporters? No.

“We are also land-locked here and also, at the moment, are going through a feasibility study for a new stadium.

“When you take that into consideration, plus the players’ wages and other bits, I’m not going to put the club in jeopardy, I’m not going to put myself in jeopardy and I’m not going to put other people in jeopardy.”

Woodward, who has threatened to leave the club himself on more than one occasion in recent months, claimed many of Grays’ rivals were also feeling the pinch of the world wide financial crisis but, unlike them, he was not willing to put the club’s long-term future at risk.

“We dealt with it straight away, whereas a lot of clubs are still going through the motions and hoping to get out the other end,” he stated.

“We are in a recession, so what we have done is look at it straight away and are not trying to kid anyone.

“It’s not about Mike Woodward anymore. This is all about Grays Athletic Football Club.

“I can reassure the fans that if we had allowed it to go on there would not have been a Grays Athletic. If we had allowed it go for the next five or six months then the club would have been in jeopardy and I’m not going to allow that.

“I know I threw my dummy out a couple of months ago but I’m on an even keel now.”

Woodward also confirmed that Grays’ players, who have been asked to take a 50 per cent cut, were free to join other clubs but implored them to stay and help them out of relegation danger.

The chairman is also hopeful of the club’s financial position improving with a run in the FA Cup or FA Trophy, or by virtue of the sell-on clause in Wolverhampton Wander-ers’ winger Michael Kightly’s contract with the Champion-ship side.

“Who is to say we may not have a decent cup run somewhere or we come into a windfall like Michael Kightly goes in the January window?” he speculated.

“There’s money that could be had but what we’ve got to be is realistic about the money we've got now.”

Woodward concluded by insisting that Grays’ plans to move to a new stadium as part of the Thurrock Sports Hub at Blackshots was still on.“(Thurrock Council) still very much want us in the new complex.

We want to be in the new complex and what we have got to realise is that in the new complex it may have been different,” he said.

“At Grays all we have got is turnstiles and a small bar and then if the sponsors cannot pay you have got nothing else.”