GRAHAM Turner has returned to the managerial hot seat at Hereford United for the most critical season in the club's 78-year history.

The United chairman has resumed coaching duties after spending most of last season in the directors' box and he is fully aware that the cash-strapped club could be just nine months from extinction.

The Bulls are about £1.3million in debt and must repay a £1million loan plus interest in May to property-developers Chelverton.

The scenario is a sobering one for the Edgar Street club and their loyal supporters.

But Turner, the former Wolves and Shrewsbury boss, is keeping his fingers crossed that Herefordshire Council will play a key role in helping to secure the future of the country's most famous FA Cup giant-killing club.

"It's an outside possibility that this could be Hereford United's last season in existence," said Turner, who has been at the club since July 1995.

"And that will be the case unless the club, the property developer and the council can come to some agreement over our future. But the possibility that the club will go out of business in May is the worst case scenario. There is plenty of good will from the developers to ensure that it does not happen.

"We have had a good relationship with Chelverton and they are still very sensitive to public opinion and have never set out to upset the supporters or, indeed, put the club in jeopardy. Chelverton have never pressed us for rent, or the million pound loan."

Proposals mooted by the leader of Herefordshire Council, Terry James, to transform the football ground into a community-use facility, incorporating the city's leisure centre on a redeveloped Edgar Street grid, have given United fresh hope.

United's Edgar Street ground is in need of a makeover, particularly the toilets, the Len Weston Stand and the Blackfriars Street End.

And Turner said: "Terry James' proposal for a leisure centre and a multiplex cinema at Edgar Street means that the football club would be left to maintain only one side of the ground, which would be a great benefit to us. It's feasible that the project could come into fruition. I think Terry James' idea is practical and will be achievable if Chelverton were to get involved with the development of the whole Edgar Street area."

He said: "Our future is very much in the council's hands. The council owns the freehold to Edgar Street so they have the whip hand. We are fully aware that the loan repayment date - and the amount we have to repay - is not going away."

Turner's own view is that the financial problems surrounding the club will be resolved before the D-Day in May and potential investors might then be prepared to take over.

Turner added: "A football club is very much a focal point in the lives of many people and can bring publicity to an area that the tourist industry simply cannot buy."