SCREWFIX PREMIER DIVISION: DEFIANT Devizes Town chairman Chris Belcher claims he will remain at the helm for the foreseeable future after crunch talks were scrapped.

Belcher returned from a two-week holiday in Fuerteventura last week and now appears to have fallen out with secretary Roy King.

Devizes are an estimated £35,000 in debt, haemorrhaging around £500 a week and slumped to the foot of the Screwfix Direct Premier Division on Saturday after a miserable 4-0 defeat at fellow strugglers Barnstaple.

Belcher had been widely tipped to walk out on the Nursteed Road outfit along with fellow former Trowbridge Town board members Tony Moore and Alan Stansbury, but all three remain at the club.

He insists speculation over his future had no foundation and stressed without him the club would have folded two years ago.

Said Belcher: "I didn't know that there was going to be a meeting last week. I don't know what Roy (King) has been playing at. He's said things he might learn to regret.

"Without the three Trowbridge people, there wouldn't have been a club last year or the year before at Devizes. I'm not boasting about that.

"I have to put in certain guarantees. The money comes out of my pocket. It is supposedly my pleasure. You get no tax rebate on it. The easiest thing for me would be to walk away. It has been done before at Devizes."

While Belcher insisted he will be going nowhere for the time being, he admitted he will not stay at Nursteed Road indefinitely with finances in such a perilous state. He said: "As the saying goes 'when the going gets tough, the tough get going'. I won't say 'I'll let this club go to the dogs, I can't be bothered any more'.

"I shan't run away, but there comes a time when my bank balance can't take it. I'm committed to staying until the funds run out. It is assessed on a weekly basis and I can't plan six weeks in advance."

Just 14 spectators paid to watch Devizes lose at home to Bridgwater last week and Belcher was the only visiting supporter at Barnstaple on Saturday.

Devizes fans are unhappy at the way Belcher has run the club since taking over from Ron Moore in 2001, but the chairman will not allow the criticism to affect him. He said: "It makes you feel as though you want to put it right. But, in football, when you are top of the league you are the best thing since sliced bread and, when you are bottom then you aren't."

Belcher scotched the suggestion, made by King, the club may resign from the Screwfix Direct League to join the Wiltshire League. He said: "The club will still be going next season, in the Western League, and hopefully in the Premier Division."

King is hoping a board meeting will take place within the next week, although he has not spoken to Belcher since he returned last Thursday.

He said: "According to Alan Stansbury (treasurer) it will be this week. The club needs a meeting now because I've got to start getting forms in for next season. The FA have been very, very good about things, but I don't want to continue like this any more."

King has spoken to Screwfix Direct League secretary Ken Clarke over the Devizes' future, but the club have yet to resign from the league and the deadline passed on Monday. If they were to do so ahead of next season, they would incur a fine of at least £200, but Clarke is hoping Devizes will choose to extend their 36-year stay in the league.

He said: "Roy King contacted me last week. I explained the problems of resigning from the league and explained how they wouldn't be able to come back in easily.''

Should Devizes finish bottom of the table, they could still be granted a stay of execution in the Premier Division as Team Bath look set to win promotion and Bath City Reserves have resigned.