WORCESTER City's urgent need for a new stadium has been highlighted by the club's latest accounts which reveal they are nearly £700,000 in debt.

The St George's Lane club made an operating loss of £16,091 for season 2001-02 but total losses with interest charges reached £56,663, taking the overall deficit to £693,276.

There were some bright spots for the club with income up by 18 per cent to £328,801, largely thanks to City's FA Cup run which netted them a series of lucrative home ties but punishing interest charges wiped out any hope of cutting the heavy deficit.

Club chairman Dr Mike Sorensen admitted that ultimately it was a disappointing set of figures that merely reinforced the importance of succeeding in their bid for a new stadium at Nunnery Way.

The club are currently awaiting the outcome of a public inquiry on the proposed development with the result expected towards the end of the year.

"There has to be a commercial side to fund our endeavours and it is not going to happen sufficiently until we move to a new stadium," he said.

"If we could move to this stadium and get rid of this recurring debt that would have a tremendous impact on how we run the football club."

"Without interest charges we lost £16,091 which was disappointing considering we increased our overall income by 18 per cent, largely as a result of our FA Cup run," added Dr Sorensen.

"It was not quite as much a loss as the previous year but it was still disappointing.

"The reasons for the loss are the same as before. We are trying to compete with other clubs in the league and that means operating with a decent wage bill.

"But we struggle to generate the commercial income which is necessary to do that.

"Gates of 1,000 do not pay the wages of our squad and never will."

A breakdown of the figures show an increase in gate receipts from £96,472 to £125,778 while season tickets were up from £9,471 to £20,872.

Manager John Barton's wage bill rose from £178,917 to £192,745 while the accounts show £7,500 was splashed out on transfer fees, £5,000 more than the previous year.

The club's annual meeting is on Sunday, September 28 (11.30am) at the City social club.