Breaking news 11pm: Dartford "reluctantly" accept League switch

“The situation is we’ve decided not to appeal because basically we’ve been advised it’s a futile exercise,” he explained EXCLUSIVELY to www.kentishfootball.co.uk at 10:50pm tonight.

“Which means reluctantly, we have to accept the decision and we focus all our efforts in winning the division one north, as we would division one south.

“But we will be writing a letter to the various bodies explaining our displeasure on what went on.”

And Mr Skinner added: “I think it was much of a surprise what went on, to the League board as to the rest of us.

“Basically, if you like, it developed into farce, as everyone was protecting their own interests.”

But Mr Skinner warned Darts fans that Ryman One North will not be as easy as first thought.

“Basically, it’s not an easier league as people are making out,” he said. “People’s experience are on teams we played last year in the Southern League, but there’s only eleven of those teams in that division that we met and a few of those were very strong and that’s without teams like AFC Sudbury.

“So we feel the initial bit of work that Tony (Burman’s) enquiries were led to believe, this will be competitive as division one south.”

Dartford will not be playing any Kent derbies in their new league surroundings next season.

“There’s no point on bleeting about it and (we’ll) focus on going ahead and winning the league,” said Mr Skinner.

“There’s not many sides that brought a lot of people to Princes Park (last season) anyway and the few that did bring a crowd will hopefully be a similar situation like people like Enfield Town and AFC Sudbury, who I think have a reasonable travelling support.”

Meanwhile, Dartford have cancelled their pre-season friendly away to Canvey Island for Saturday, 11th August, because the Essex side are now divisional rivals.