TUESDAY, IF you take a cursory look at your diaries, will be the 13th day of the month. It will also, with a flourish of destiny, mark Gretna's last day in the Clydesdale Bank Scottish Premier League when they play Hearts and bring back memories of the 2006 Scottish Cup final.

This extraordinary, and ultimately desperately sad, episode may reach its logical conclusion four days later when the money will literally run out. As joint administrator David Elliot conceded on Thursday, if a deal with a new investor hasn't been concluded by then, his company will move to wind up Gretna's affairs.

The creditors' meeting held on that day was by all accounts an acrimonious affair. Former player David Bingham, who is claiming a "substantial" amount from the club, pointed out that a lot of people are due an explanation by Brooks Mileson. If he just made an appearance, said the striker, many of the unanswered questions might at least be resolved.

I'm not going to join the chorus condemning the man, and in that respect I found some of the comments made by Hamilton Accies chairman Ronnie MacDonald recently inappropriate, but Mileson - assuming he is well enough - is doing himself no favours by donning the racing silks of Lord Lucan whilst saddling Shergar. Explanations are due, and quickly.

My understanding is that he is at home, as that is certainly the impression of his local evening newspaper in Carlisle which made an uninvited, and unsuccessful, attempt to speak to him in person recently. Until he talks, we're never going to understand why Gretna imploded so spectacularly. Rumours regarding his health are also very mixed, but hopefully in that regard at least he is making a recovery.

That, however, is a prospect that is looking remote for his club. There are, we are told, four parties who are interested in taking over the shell of the club and somehow building it up to compete in the Scottish Football League First Division next season. A new fans' organisation, the Gretna Supporters' Society, has been formed to try to secure the future of football in the village and raise the reported £35,000 required to bring Raydale Park up to SFL standards.

Contrary to the cynics' mockings, the inaugural meeting of this organisation wasn't held in one of the country's remaining public phone boxes. Some 150 individuals turned up, which is a very decent turnout for a public meeting these days. Gretna, it should be recalled, had a raft of commendable initiatives to take football into the community before the money dried up, and now the community feels it's time to try to repay that.

There has been so much ridiculing of the club and their supporters in recent months that it's important to state that football enthusiasts in the village and its environs are no different from those to be found anywhere else in rural parts. Decent people, who love the game.

At the moment they're putting their faith in Paul Davies, who works for a footballing agency in Glasgow and is the son of the club's security organiser, to come up with an investment package to save the club.

Davies in the past has talked about Gretna becoming a feeder club for an English one. I would have loved him to elaborate on this for our mutual understanding, but he failed to return a call made to him.

That, to be fair, need not necessarily be a bad sign if he has a realistic plan which would be endangered by sharing confidential information. Experience, however, doesn't lead me to that conclusion.

The biggest threat to Gretna's future is their footballing debt, because that is not something of which the authorities take a lenient view. Unless an investor finds a way to placate those who are owed money in this direction, Gretna's survival prospects are perilous.

The SPL chairman Lex Gold, who himself has come under attack in recent weeks, touched the wood on his boardroom table on Friday when he told me it looked like Gretna will now fulfil their season's fixtures. For a long time it was touch and go. It was the SPL's advances of money which would have been eventually due to Gretna which has kept them afloat thus far after Mileson refused to sign any more cheques. Gold gave a categoric assurance, despite the desperation to keep the club afloat until May, that Gretna hadn't been paid a penny more than they were due.

The club's slide into administration is forcing the SPL to look again at theissue of groundsharing, but Gold added that his board will now also be obliged to look at the finances of promoted clubs. He hinted that an extension of Uefa's licensing system may be the way forward.

Hindsight is something we all like to embrace, but Gretna's promotion to the top flight, long before the club was prepared for it, unquestionably hastened their demise. Almost 140 businesses and individuals are owed money, and that's something that has to be weighed up when considering their "fairytale" rise.

A lot of people are justifiably angry with Brooks Mileson, but then again many more have good reason to be grateful for his largesse. Until I'm convinced otherwise, I prefer to believe that he got swept away by an over-ambitious dream and that this sad ending was far from premeditated.

HAS so much hot air and guff ever been sparked by a fixture congestion? It's happened before in football and will do so again. That's life. If those fulminating could come up with a realistic solution it would be easier to take their indignation seriously.

l Ian Bell, back page