DEVIZES Football Club chairman Chris Belcher has promised to reveal the true state of the troubled club's finances in the near future.

Mr Belcher used his programme notes for the FA Vase quarter-final on Saturday to attack the Gazette for its stories on the club's reported debts of £35,000 and the threat of a winding up order from Surrey firm Turf Machinery Ltd over an unpaid bill of £4,000.

In his notes, in which he called the Gazette a 'rag', he said: "I do not intend to waste your time answering the garbage I had to endure but will shortly be answering all of these innunendos with the truth.''

Yesterday he indicated this could mean an announcement about the club's future at Nursteed Road.

He refused to confirm he is in talks with the owner of the ground, Linpac, about a possible sale of the ground for housing or retail development. But he said: "You cannot run a club on 23 supporters turning up for games, you don't have to be a maths genius to work that out. We are having talks but I don't want to say any more than that.''

President Phil Rossiter's resignation from the board means the only Devizes person on it is secretary Roy King.

But Mr Belcher hit back at criticism. "I am fed up with this talk about a Trowbridge mafia,'' he said. "If it wasn't for us there wouldn't be a club. I don't see many of these so-called concerned fans turning up for games.''