Eastbourne Borough chairman Len Smith has slammed the Blue Square south for messing up his club's big night out.

The Conference told Borough on Saturday their play-off final against Hampton and Richmond on Thursday had been switched from Stevenage to Ebbsfleet.

But they completed a U-turn today (Tuesday) by reverting back to the original venue.

Smith said: "It is a complete shambles. It's ruined one of the biggest night's in the club's history for a lot of our supporters. They will be cheesed off.

"We don't like the way we've been treated and I don't think Hampton and Richmond are too happy about it either.

"I don't think the Conference appreciate what's involved with the travel arrangements.

"It's caused chaos. We had an estimated 5-600 supporters coming along but I doubt if a lot of them can go now.

"Youngsters who booked a coach will not be able to use it because they would have to leave before the end of school. Others have booked non-returnable train fares to Ebbsfleet.

"We had no team coach booked because it was easier for players to drive to Ebbsfleet because it was closer than Stevenage. Now we're having to sort one which had been allocated to other people connected with the club.

"Ironically, I have just had a letter from the Ebbsfleet chairman saying he's looking forward to meeting me.

"Also, we've only just found out what colour shirts to wear - our second strip of yellow. We had wanted to make special shirts to commemorate the occasion.

"We were in the final a couple of years ago at Stoke and arrangements went smoothly."

Borough were kept in the dark over the reasons for the switches.

Conference secretary Dennis Strudwick said: "Ebbsfleet was a contingency plan because there were one or two issues with Stevenage which had not been resolved. But those issues have now been resolved.

"I did not go into the reasons for the changes with Eastbourne Borough because I thought the issues wouldn't be resolved and the match would go ahead at Ebbsfleet.

"I am conscious the situation is not ideal."