Oxford United Football Club's future will be decided in the next 72 hours.

Managing director Keith Cox will meet the club's bankers, Lloyds Bank, today to review United's financial position.

And directors plan to decide at a board meeting at Oxford United on Friday which way the club can go in the light of the bank's requests or demands.

Some sources claim that Lloyds have imposed deadlines for the withdrawal of the club's £1.25m loan facility.

The proposed meeting between the representative of Grenoble Investments Ltd and principle shareholder Robin Herd's solicitor, planned for yesterday, has been rescheduled for today.

Hopes remain that the consortium planning a takeover of the club, still has a life, but they have been diminishing since City investor John Gunn pulled out at the end of last week. The meeting with Lloyds will be critical and will determine whether United can pay last month's wages to their staff.

"The board meeting on Friday will discuss the club's future," Cox said, "and we want to do that with all the information that's available to us. "That's whether the consortium's offer is going to continue, and if not, what the reasons are; what our liabilities are and how to meet them.

"We are trying to keep the thing as a going concern. If you can't meet your liabilities at present but can in the future, then administration is a possible solution." Meanwhile, United fans are hoping the new wonder drug Viagra can help keep their struggling club up.

Daniel Curtis, editor of Yellow Fever, one of the club's two fanzines, has written to Pfizer Ltd, the manufacturers of the impotence drug, asking them to buy the club and rescue their flagging Minchery Farm stadium plans.

The stadium was started more than two years ago, but it has remained unfinished since work stopped over lack of cash.

Faced with the prospect of losing his beloved club, Mr Curtis sprung into action and wrote to the pharmaceutical firm in Kent, urging them that buying Oxford United would be a good deal for both sides.

He said: "I would love to see Oxford United given a chance to recapture its glorious past of the 1980s. I would like to see Oxford United run like a successful business, and thus secure a future for professional football in Oxfordshire."

Mr Curtis is likely to face competition in his bid to secure the services of the Viagra makers. As producers of the most successfully marketed drugs in history, the company is inundated with requests for sponsorship and donations.

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