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Dover Athletic's scheduled Skrill South game against Farnborough hangs in balance with Hampshire side awaiting Football Conference membership verdict

Chris Kinnear
Chris Kinnear

Uncertainty hangs over Dover’s scheduled trip to Farnborough on Saturday with the Hampshire side still waiting to learn if they have been accepted into The Skrill South.

Farnborough courted nationwide publicity when bookmakers Paddy Power announced they were funding the club’s exit from administration in return for the Boro players adopting the names of football legends.

But a team supposed to feature Franz Beckenbauer, Zinedine Zidane and Diego Maradona haven’t been allowed to play a single game yet.

Football Conference bosses last week gave Farnborough a deadline of 5pm on Thursday to meet their criteria for membership of the league, leaving Dover’s plans for the weekend up in the air.

Whites boss Chris Kinnear said: “Nobody knows what’s happening. It’s a bit of a circus there by the sound of things. I don’t really know the ins and outs of it but it’s not helping sides. You’ve got to print programmes, organise stewards, that sort of thing.”

On the issue of players changing their names by deed poll, he added: “They’re doing it to get money and if they’re struggling for money that much, it’s a bit sad. I know one or two of their players, one’s a teacher and the school have told him not to do it. It doesn’t set a good example as a teacher.”

Dover should find out this week how long Lloyd Harrington will be sidelined for, the winger having injured his knee against Ebbsfleet on August 20.

Meanwhile, Kinnear’s immediate focus is on how to convert chances into goals at Crabble after two successive 1-0 home defeats.

He said: “We’ve just got to finish, to make sure that when we’ve got teams on the rack, that we beat them.

“We knew when we started it was going to be a learning period. We’ve got quite a young side and we’ve won 60% of our games, so it’s not the end of the world.

“It’s just disappointing that the two games we’ve lost have been at home. The players are desperate to do well at home.”

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