Third Division strugglers Exeter City have ended their attempts to bring in Paul Gascoigne as a player-coach.
Former England midfielder Gascoigne was due to see officials from the south-west club today but the meeting was cancelled.
And Exeter chairman John Russell said: "We will now be exploring other avenues.
"We have had 61 enquiries about the vacant manager's post and we will now be honing them down to 17 good applicants and phoning those people this afternoon to try and arrange interviews as quickly as possible."
Gascoigne, whose career highpoint was reaching the 1990 World Cup semi-final with England, played in the First Division for Burnley last season.
He trained in America with DC United during the summer but a permanent move fell through.