Dartford were 20 minutes away from taking on Southport without a recognised goalkeeper on Saturday.

Alan Julian was stranded in traffic for hours by the serious accident which closed part of the M25.

Dartford manager Tony Burman didn’t have a back-up goalkeeper in his matchday squad and dual-registered stopper Deren Ibrahim was in Berkshire with Leatherhead for an FA Cup tie.

"It was a bit worrying,” Burman admitted. “At one stage, it was touch and go and we were trying to get Deren back from Binfield by train.

"Mat Mitchel-King (a centre-back, named on the Darts bench) said he’d been in goal a couple of times for Crewe.

"I’d rather have done that than change the 10 who were starting outfield."

Julian shares lifts to home games with Darts striker Jason Prior, who lives in Portsmouth. Their journey from Cobham normally takes 45 minutes but on Saturday they were stuck in the car for three hours.

"It was unbelievable,” Julian said. "We were keeping the gaffer updated every 10 minutes or so. There was nothing we could do about it."

The motorway jam was caused by a vehicle crashing through the central reservation and colliding with oncoming traffic.

Julian said: "We were stressing out but when we arrived at the accident and saw what had happened, football suddenly didn’t seem all that important.

"Your thoughts immediately go out to those people and you feel selfish that you were moaning about it.”

The pair finally reached Princes Park at 2.35pm and Julian kept a clean sheet as Dartford won 1-0.