Town have asked all staff to take a cut in pay in order to reduce the shortfall caused by last season's relegation. All members of staff - including the players - have been asked to to take a drop of between 2% and 10% depending on their earnings.

It is understood that chairman David Sheepshanks, chief executive Derek Bowden and some senior players are behind this move announced at a meeting earlier this week.

The club management called the meeting and informed all staff and players of the situation and outlined the voluntary scheme. The staff were told to go away and consider the scheme before giving their response by the end of this week.

The scheme asks staff to have a percentage of their wages held back until August of next year by which time the club hope to be back in the Premiership or that the transfer market will have recovered sufficiently that the club can sell players.

The scheme appears to be the first stage of what has become known as David Sheepshanks' 'Plan B,' after the summer's failure to make up the shortfall via player sales; Plan A.

Sources at the club are reported to have said that the uptake of the scheme has been high, however, any savings will still leave a significant shortfall.

Other measures planned included a restructuring of debts and a possible non-representative share issue while there have been fears amongst some at the club of redundancies amongst off-field staff.

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