Jay Saunders stressed there was no way Maidstone could have played their postponed match against Macclesfield.

The Silkmen had a wasted journey south after home players got stuck on the M25 following a serious crash.

Lee Worgan, Josh Hare, Dean Beckwith, Will De Havilland and Jack Richards were the only available players to reach the Gallagher for Tuesday night's match.

Stuart Lewis and Ollie Muldoon also arrived but were suspended and injured respectively.

Stones manager Saunders was happy to wait but the match was postponed at 7.45pm, with most of his side still hours from the ground.

It could have gone ahead had United been able to cobble together seven players but Macclesfield boss John Askey, whose side travelled down on Monday, had no interest in forcing the issue.

Saunders said: "The ref did say if there's seven players then we'll go for it.

"To be honest, we had seven players in there but not all available.

"To be fair to John Askey, he didn't want to do that.

"He did say 'I don't want to play against seven players, it makes it a bit of a farce' to which I said, 'we can't win with 11, I certainly don't want to play with seven!''

"So we had that conversation and the ref said 'I can go back as late as quarter to nine' but it came to quarter to eight and, realistically, it wasn't going to happen.

"We looked at every angle. If I could have got it played I would have done.

"Don't get me wrong, I didn't want to play with seven but even if it had been 11, we would have done it and waited for the subs to get here but it wasn't going to happen.

"Especially with the support we get, to try and manage that, the sensible decision had to be made.

"What can you do? If the ref had kept saying 'we'll put it back and put it back,' then fair enough, we would have waited.

"It wasn't that I was saying I wanted the game called off, I was quite happy to get the game played and I made John aware of that."

There was a suggestion United could have fulfilled the fixture with an academy side rather than risk punishment from the National League - but Saunders confirmed that wasn't an option.

He said: "They have to be registered to the league but again I didn't have the players here.

"Any of the players that are registered are out playing at other clubs, the likes of Rhys Bartlett and people like that are out playing Bostik South tonight, so it would have meant dragging them from their game. It wasn't possible."