AS I write it is transfer deadline day.

Of all the days in the year when no football is played, it is probably the most important for the football fan.

Yet today, nobody is talking about transfers.

Six clubs are reported to have prepared papers to go into administration.

Two or three of them are so obvious even the most blinkered of fans couldn't be in any doubt.

But the fans of every middle-ranking football club with no obvious means of financial support - and a few bigger sides as well - must be suffering a nervous breakfast this morning.

Figures like '36 clubs going out of business seem exaggerated.

There are always ways of saving money - albeit painful ones.

The estimated 1,000 unemployed footballers this summer might just be the tip of the iceberg.

However, if ITV Digital isn't saved, expect 10 clubs to progress quickly to serious financial difficulties.

Expect a couple of them - possibly more - to be established first division sides.

Remember the first division clubs earn up to £3 million a year - that is much harder to replace than £500,000 or so.

There might be 'white knights' for five or six of them.

One or two more - perhaps the bigger clubs - might sell off their players or even their grounds in order to preserve themselves.

That still leaves two or three towns, which will be kissing goodbye to professional football.

That is two or three too many.

One suggestion is that fans ought to boycott ITV's terrestrial channels to force Granada and Carlton into fulfilling their moral obligation to communities across the country.

There's the germ of a good idea in there, but it isn't, as such, going to work.

For one thing, looking through the TV schedule I severely doubt if I watch an hour of ITV's programming every week.

Apart from the odd good film and the occasional first division game, normally involving Manchester City, there is absolutely nothing worth watching.

For another, ITV's most popular shows tend to be 'family' orientated.

Is the wife/child/elderly relative going to care if Exeter City or Halifax Town are being forced out of business? Are they prepared to miss out on their fix of Vera Barlow and Tracey Duckworth or whatever other inane stereotypes the scriptwriters have decided to make famous this week.

A much better tactic would be to go straight to the horse's mouth - the advertisers themselves who keep ITV in business.

The chairman of, say Proctor and Gamble, (sic) may not be impressed by a small drop in the viewing figures for Coronation Street, but he might become concerned if her received thousands of letters and e-mails from angry football fans.

That might, at least, make the ITV bosses nervous.

We owe it to the supporters to do all we can.

Do you agree? Write and let us know.