Club captain Iain Harvey says he is devastated at the news Chippenham Town have been docked three points and fears it could spell the end of the season.

The Bluebirds were found guilty of fielding an ineligible player in the March 31 match at Yate Town, when substitute Aaron Wilson was technically still registered with the home side.

A Southern League investigation came down hard on the Wiltshire club and also fined them three hundred pounds. They are not expected to appeal the verdict.

The points loss will all but end Chippenham's slim hopes of reaching the play-offs and they would require an amazing chain of results to reach the top five.

"It's absolutely devastating for us," said Harvey "It was always going to be difficult for us to reach the play-offs at this stage as we would have needed to win all our remaining games and hope other results went for us.

"We were up against it and then with three points taken off us it just makes it that much harder.

"I didn't know anything about it until just know and so I've no idea who is responsible for it.

"Having said that, we won't give up until it's mathematically impossible to make the play-offs. We'll keep trying to win all our games and hope for the best but it will be hard now.

"It's happened now and we've just got to accept it and move on and hope it doesn't happen again.

"I'm absolutely devastated though."

Chippenham Town have four games left in the season and can now finish on a maximum of 67 points. A total which would have been enough to make the top five in the past three seasons.

They host Rugby Town on Saturday and travel to Tiverton on Bank Holiday Monday.