A MEETING of the Chelsea board at Stamford Bridge this afternoon may go a long way towards deciding the final lineup in this season's National League First Division.

The London club is expected to decide at today's meeting whether to give its support to Newbridge Town's application for membership of the league which, if financial backing is forthcoming from England, is likely to be reactivated in time for Monday night's Management Committee meeting in Dublin.

Representatives of Newbridge, who expressed an interest in joining the First Division last season, were approached by the National League officials on Wednesday with a view to establishing whether or not the club would be willing to take up the place left vacant by St James' Gate at such short notice. The club have indicated that they would be interested in filling the vacancy should it be confirmed but that they could only consider the matter properly when they know if the Chelsea board would be willing to assist with the costs involved.

"We have told Michael Hyland that we will come back to them by Saturday but the backing of Chelsea would certainly be a major factor in our decision," said club spokesperson Jimmy Dowling yesterday.

Hyland yesterday insisted that Newbridge were only one of a number of clubs who were being considered as possible replacements for Sub James's Gate but several of the other clubs who had been thought to be in the running have not received any communication from the league to date which, given the apparent determination to resolve the situation by Monday evening, would appear to rule them out.

One other club which has been approached is 1990 FAl Cup finalists St Francis but with two Leinster Senior League matches already played and an absence of an obvious source of major funding, the Dubliners would seem to be behind Newbridge in the queue at the moment.

Two other sides from the capital, TEK and Tolka Rovers were also being mentioned as possible substitutes for the troubled Crumlin outfit but the Stradbrook club appears not to feature in the league's plans at present, while there is a strong feeling at Rovers that the leap from junior status to the national stage would be too great to undertake in one go.

Another club to have expressed an interest in moving out of local football in recent years has been Tralee Dynamos but, while they too have expressed a willingness to consider any offer that might come their way, they remain cool about the timing of the current situation.

"We'd be interested in going down that road all right and there is a great base for the game here in Kerry now but a lot of clubs have gone in in the past and got the finances wrong and we'd be keen to sort that side of things out first," said club secretary Murt Murphy yesterday.

"Certainly if they invited us to join, we'd consider it very carefully but we would have our terms just as they have theirs and we would have to be sure that it would be the right thing for us at this point in time."

Those sort of doubts are also a factor at Newbridge where a business plan had already been drawn up with a view to making a serious attempt to gain National League status by the start of the 1998-99 season.

Given the current circumstances, however, and the fact that, barring a major reorganisation of the league over the coming years, it might prove difficult to win election in the future, the club is now hoping to implement the main areas of the business plan two years sooner than they had originally planned.

"We had seen an advert in the paper around last January inviting applications to the league, and we had met with the Michael Hyland then and he said that while there were no vacancies at that time, they were hoping for an expansion at the start of the 1998 season and so that's what everything had been geared towards," Dowling said."

"The way it was put to us now, though, is that they have a vacancy which they have to fill, they have a number of applications and they wanted to know whether we were in or out," said Dowling. "I explained that it was short notice and that our league is getting under way this weekend but I said we get back to them as soon as we could."

The original business plan had been drawn up at the suggestion of Ken Bates, who has a son and daughter living in the area and who had already expressed an interest in providing extensive financial backing to the club. It will now be presented to the Chelsea board and, in light of the current circumstances, Dowling believes that Graham Bell, the Chelsea director who has been liaising with the club in recent months, will recommend that the London-based side make substantial funds available immediately so that it can be implemented.

Under the scheme the club would construct a stadium with between 5,000 and 6,000 capacity while a budget would also be made available to bring in a number of players. Chelsea in return would have first refusal on any young players who might be brought through by the Kildare club, while there is also the possibility that they would send some of their existing players to Ireland to gain competitive experience.

Firstly, however, the National League must formally consider the position of St James's Gate. Club officials there insist that they will appeal their expulsion and, given how close to the brink of extinction a number of other league clubs have gone in recent years only to be saved, they would appear to have some reason to be feel hard done by.

League President, Hyland, insists that nothing will be decided until Monday but the fact that they could conveniently be offered Newbridge's place in the first division of the Leinster Senior League or, failing that, St. Francis's slot in the Premier Division of the same league would suggest that their fate has already been very clearly thought out.