Relegation was finally confirmed in Toronto and now we must start planning for the season ahead in League One.

It has been a very busy time as negotiations have had to be restarted with all the players, with existing contracts for next year becoming null and void.

Hopefully we will be in a position to start making some announcements in the next week or so. Some of our players have agreed new deals and it is just a case of sorting out the paperwork or organising the press releases.

Clearly we haven’t been good enough this season but I think if we can keep the majority of the team together and maybe go for one or two quality additions we will be well placed to return to the Championship at our first attempt.

The players fleetingly proved that they were good enough with those victories against Halifax and Featherstone and I don’t believe any of the current League One teams could have achieved those results.

Whitehaven, who look likely to be crowned champions, were dumped out of the Challenge Cup at home by a Rochdale team minus their dual registration players. Rochdale were out of their depth so hopefully keeping our team together will be good enough.

And therein lays the challenge. Our central distribution last season was £210,000 and next we are facing a drop to as low as a guaranteed £63,000.

That will go up to nearer six figures when you add in our funding from the RFL KPIs, but it still represents a massive hole in our budget. A lot of our costs, like any other domestic households, are fixed with things like utilities and the mortgage and loans not able to be changed.

Other costs like medical provision and ground upkeep are in a similar boat and the pressure inevitably is on playing costs.

We want to bounce back at our first attempt but we need the budget to retain and attract players. As a result we are planning to launch an 1875 Club. We are hoping that our fans rally round and commit to a monthly standing order that will be ring-fenced for player recruitment.

I’ve always said that we will get the club we deserve and if we can get 100 people committing a tenner a month (hopefully more) then we will have £12,000 available that will help to fill that hole.

There are many clubs with similar schemes with Widnes raising over six figures during their crisis in February and we have spoken to people at Leigh and Swinton who have seen their teams improve as a result of their fans. Swinton managed to fund all their dual registration signings and ultimately that has probably been the difference in ensuring survival.

Unfortunately we are not blessed with a sugar daddy or rich benefactor. We offer a work ethic and a promise that the funds will be used exactly as designated. We hope our fans will back the scheme and in a year’s time have something to celebrate.