UNDER-fire Devizes Town chairman Chris Belcher is expected to walk away from Nursteed Road for good this evening after holding crisis talks with the club's board.

Secretary Roy King says he believes he will be the only member of the four-man Devizes committee remaining when the board meet to discuss the best way forward for the ailing Screwfix Direct Premier Division club.

Devizes are an estimated £35,000 in debt and losing around £500 a week. Saturday's home game against Bridgwater attracted only 14 paying spectators. The club's directors will also decide tonight whether they should resign from the Screwfix League and join the Wiltshire League at the start of next season.

Major shareholder Belcher is blamed my many supporters for the club's decline. He returns from a two-week holiday today.

He was a director at Trowbridge Town when they folded in 1998 along with Devizes vice chairman Tony Moore and treasurer Alan Stansbury. All three are likely to sever their ties with the cash-strapped Nursteed Road club.

Belcher's son Ali has already resigned from his role as the club's assistant manager after he and his father were criticised by angry fans following a 2-0 home reverse against Bath City Reserves on March 8.

King, the only Devizes resident on the committee, refused to confirm rumours of Belcher's imminent departure but expects to be handed sole responsibility for club affairs following the crunch talks.

He said: "Whatever he does when he comes back from holiday will be up to him. There will be massive changes and, if Devizes Town people don't get involved and help then there won't be a club.

"It looks like, at the end of the day, that I will be the only one left. I will not be prepared to run this on my own the way things are going.

"There might be different decisions made this week, but it looks like I could be the only person left. Right now I'm running the club, doing the football and company secretary roles and I can't even manage that."

Belcher took over as chairman from Ron Moore and formed a new limited company, Devizes Town AFC Ltd, in August 2001.

Last season the club achieved a fifth placed Premier Division finish under Brian Newlands, but the current campaign has been marred by both managerial upheaval and off-the-field uncertainty.

The club find themselves facing relegation from the Premier Division and gates have plummeted dramatically.

Just 22 fans, only 14 of them paying, attended Saturday's 3-1 home reverse at the hands of Bridgwater.

King is growing increasingly concerned over the future of the club.

He said: "What do the town want? They obviously don't want what we have at the moment.

"You can't run a club on nothing. We made about £48 on the gate because they weren't all full-payers.

"You have only got to look at the number of punters and you can see where your troubles are. We had to pay £94 on Saturday for officials. We paid £147 three weeks ago and that means you have got to get 40 or 50 through those gates just to pay the officials.

"Then you have your staff to pay and your security and your bar stewards. It is hard work. You need about 100 punters on the gate and need an income of at least £1,500 per week to survive."

The Devizes secretary believes a move to Wiltshire League football, a drop of two divisions, is now a real possibility if the club are to stave off the threat of closure.

Said King: "Where are we finding the money? That is obviously down to us, but it's not easy.

"It can't go on. We cannot see, if this continues, how we can think of even staying in the Western League.

"You have got to pay players in the Western League and you haven't in the Wiltshire League. We've got to sit down seriously and think about whether it is worth continuing.

"It is a crucial meeting because it is about the future of this club. We have to decide now because we have eight games left to play this season. We haven't even got a Western League side out there on the pitch, I don't think. Trowbridge should have beaten us four or five-nil the week before."

King does not believe the club will face financial ruin should Belcher decide to quit as expected this evening.

Woking firm Turf Machinery Limited have threatened to wind Devizes up in the High Court over an unpaid bill of £4,000, but King stressed the club do not have a stream of angry creditors waiting to be paid.

He said: "We are not that bad on that. We owe the bank, the same as any other club, but as far as anything else goes we would scrape out of that.

"It depends who we can get to take it all on board. We will start from scratch.

"There won't be a debt. It is a limited company, so that will go with it. It is a debt to the bank, but we have done something with the bank so that they won't dip out. That's about as much as I can say."

Neil Beck