WHYTELEAFE chairman Mark Coote has taken over the club stating "drastic measures" needed to be taken to save the Ryman League basement boys.

Whyteleafe were a members' owned club until Coote took over last week after achieving an 85 per cent majority vote from the members.

It has been a busy week for Leafe, who saw manager Nicky English depart the club by "mutual consent" on Monday, following Saturday's ninth defeat in 10 games.

But Coote has big plans for the Church Road club, believing, as joint owner with his Formark Scaffolding business partner, he will now be able to generate a better budget for the first team.

"I've been at Whyteleafe since 1995 but we were finding it more and more difficult to sustain the club through the current revenue source," Coote explained.

"As a members' club we couldn't get the funding and I realised drastic measures needed to be taken.

"I've been putting money into the club for the last 10 years, and I'm talking thousands of pounds, but I couldn't keep doing that without having an asset to show for it. It is like hiring a car and putting in a brand new stereo and new wheels knowing you are going to give it back, you just wouldn't do it."

And Coote plans to run the football club as a business, insisting he will not let "egos" get in the way of the finances.

"For so long we have relied on bar revenue and donations to fund the club which just isn't sustainable," he said.

"It is a business at the end of the day - and the biggest centre in the whole of Whyteleafe, so I would really like to see the community more involved with the club; I've already brought in a nursery who use the clubhouse during the daytime.

"Football managers always want good budgets, but I don't want the club to be spending money it doesn't have.

"The last thing we want is to end up like Ashford Town in Kent or even Croydon Athletic. It is all down to people's egos that clubs go downhill and I won't allow it."

Leafe are currently in the Ryman League Division One South relegation zone, but Coote has big ambitions for the club - and none of them involve relegation.

"We have 14 games left and I really think with two or three new players and some fresh ideas we can drag ourselves out of danger," he said.

"That is to take nothing away from the job Nick [English] did. He did wonderfully last season to keep us up with no budget and then we had a bit of a budget this season, but things just didn't work out.

"But a couple of wins and we will put fear into the teams above us and then who knows?

"We want to see the team get out of this league within the next couple of years - and I don't mean going down."

And Coote's Leafe dream is not just about on the pitch performances, but the playing surface itself.

"My ultimate dream is to install top 3G on the main pitch," he enthused.

"It would generate a lot of money and also mean the players trained on the same surface they would play their matches on.

"As the rules state at the moment it would mean we couldn't enter the FA Cup or Trophy, but we would more than make up the revenue in the thousands we lose every season through games being called off because of waterlogged pitches."