Gosport Borough secretary Craig Stainton labels Southern League's fuel crisis postponements a 'shambles' as Wimborne Town meeting at Privett Park is latest fixture called off

Boro's scheduled Southern League Premier South meeting with Wimborne Town at Privett Park tomorrow night has now been postponed at the request of the Dorset club.

Wimborne officials claimed they would be unable to make the trip with the ongoing nationwide fuel shortage.

But Boro secretary Stainton has criticised the Southern League for a lack of communication on the matter.

And he says Gosport have received no directive as to whether they will receive any financial support for costs already incurred ahead of tomorrow's now postponed meeting with Wimborne.

Stainton said: ‘The Southern League have made no statement to the effect, however, clubs can appeal to them that they can’t get any fuel.

‘Wimborne, for example, were due to be travelling to us - tonight Poole are travelling to Salisbury - Poole and Wimborne are right next door - but they’ve got no problem gaining fuel.

‘There’s nothing stopping any club turning around now saying they’ve got an injury crisis and they can call this game off.

‘We had an email this morning at 7 o’clock asking if we had a problem with the game being called off and our response was, ‘yes, we do have a problem.’

‘The club has got all sorts of costs involved in putting this game on tomorrow, programmes have been printed, all those sort of things - no-one has even mentioned how we’re going to get the money back for that.

‘Regardless of loss of income, how do we now cover the costs of buying food, which can’t be saved, and all those sort of costs, how do we redeem those costs? Nothing has been mentioned to us from the Southern League.

‘The chairman will have to foot the bill again, at the end of the day, how is that fair? How is that going to be rectified?’

However, Gosport and Poole Town received directive from the FA to make 'alternate travel arrangements' for their under-18s FA Youth Cup meeting at Privett Park on Thursday.

Stainton says the lack of 'joined up working' between the FA and the Southern League is a 'shambles'.

He added: ‘The problem is here, we as a club, we’ve had directive from the FA that our FA Youth Cup game (against Poole Town on Thursday) must take place so we must make alternate travel arrangements - train, coach or whatever else - the Southern League are saying clubs can go by car.

‘As I said, we’ve had one directive from the FA, one from the Southern League - we’ve had nothing from the Southern League - it’s just a shambles, really.’