Basingstoke Town have been forced to cancel their league match against Staines tomorrow night because of fuel shortages.

The club said that a number of players and officials were unable to find fuel, and they risk "putting them under unnecessary strain on their limited resources with full time jobs to complete across the remainder of the week".

It comes after thousands of motorists descended on petrol stations across Basingstoke this weekend.

Panic-buying was sparked after concerns from BP that the HGV driver shortage could impact its ability to keep up with fuel deliveries.

The country is in the fourth day of panic-buying, with some stations having low availability, or not selling certain grades of fuel.

Others are putting price or volume limits on purchases.

The move by Basingstoke Town to cancel Tuesday night's match on the outskirts of the capital will save players, coaches, staff and fans from the 66-mile round trip.

The club said in a post on their website that officials wanted to allow time for the situation to rectify itself, "but sadly it doesn't look like that will happen over the next 24 hours".

The full statement reads: "In light of the current fuel shortage we have made the difficult decision to postpone tomorrow’s game should it be sanctioned by the league.

"We have a number of players and officials who are currently unable to source fuel alongside those who may have enough to travel, but we risk putting them under unnecessary strain on their limited resources with full time jobs to complete across the remainder of the week.

"The decision has been made in balance of time – as we do not want to have our hosts incur financial or effort costs, alongside allowing enough time to see if the situation rectifies itself – but sadly it doesn’t look like that will happen over the next 24 hours.

"For that reason, we have accepted the league’s decision to allow us to postpone the fixture versus Staines."

The Dragons sit fifth in the Isthmian South Central league, with ten points in their first four matches.

Their next match will now be Chipstead, at home at 3pm on Saturday.