GOALKEEPER Gareth Stewart is keen to stay at Dorchester and hopes to secure his future in due course.

Stewart signed a one-year deal with the county town club last August and despite admitting that the Magpies made things difficult for themselves this season, the former AFC Bournemouth gloveman is eager to stick around.

He said: “I’ve never said I want to leave and I’ll stick to that now. What happens is up to the manager and chairman and I’m sure we’ll find out in the near future. But I’ve got no reason to jump ship now.”

The Magpies escaped the threat of relegation on the final day of the season as Tom Mitchell scored the winning goal against Bromley and condemned Thurrock to the drop.

Reflecting on the season as a whole, in which Dorchester collected 42 Blue Square South points from the same number of games, Stewart added: “The story of our season is that we haven’t made things easy for ourselves.

“We’ve had times in games when really we should have seen things out but haven’t and it ends up going to the last game because of it.

“Fortunately we did on the last day what we’ve been trying to do all season.

“We’ve had our disruptions this season – it’s been injuries or it’s been players leaving at different times.

“But whatever it’s been it has happened whenever we’ve started to find our feet.

“After one game Ivan got injured then straight after that Roy got injured, and they’re key players. What happened after Christmas in terms of players leaving was another disruption but you’ve just got to deal with that and fight.

“We did the best we can and at the end of the day the only thing we were concerned about was staying in this league, and we’ve done it.

“So I guess we have to call the season a success given where we were and what could’ve happened.

“We also had a good little cup run which was nice.”

Stewart, who kept 14 clean sheets in 49 starts in all competitions this campaign, is hopeful that the bulk of the current squad will stay on and climb the table next season.

He said: “You look at the team we’ve got now and hope that we can keep it together, but obviously that’s something for the manager and chairman to sort out.

“If we can push on next year and get fans through the door then who knows where the club can go? I believe that we’ve got the basis of a very good team, we just need to knit it together, start the season a high and see where we go from there.”