THE future of Cirencester Town's manager, Neil Hards, was due to be decided as the Standard went to press last night.

Hards was scheduled to have the second of two meetings with club chairman, Steve Abbley, to decide if he should stay with the Centurions who are virtually certain of being relegated from the Southern League Premier Division.

Having lost 12, drawn four and won one of their past 17 matches, Cirencester are three points above bottom club, Northwood, who have two games in hand.

Winning their final two games would give Cirencester the same number of points as Wealdstone, who top the four-team relegation zone.

However, Wealdstone - who have a game in hand - would have to lose all their remaining fixtures.

The three other relegation zone teams all have better goal differences than Cirencester, who would need win each of their remaining two games by at least a six-goal margin.

Even then, Town would need a points-per-game record superior to the 19th-placed teams in the Northern Premier and Isthmian Premier divisions to avoid relegation to Southern League Division One.

Although insisting he would not give up until relegation was mathematically certain, Hards said: "There's more chance of aliens coming down than us getting ourselves out of trouble."

Saying he and the chairman had a "decent conversation" in their first meeting, Hards added: "We're going to have another meeting on Wednesday; a decision will be made on Wednesday.

"Nobody is more disappointed than myself about the way things have turned out.

"Whether I am here next year or not, the future looks good for the club as regards the young lads coming through."

He said he played Steve Cowe and Dan Hilder up front, against Corby Town, to see if the latter could use his experience to hold the ball up for the former to utilise his pace and touch.

Kevin Sawyer, Cirencester's first-choice goalkeeper, will miss Town's remaining two games with a broken finger.