A disallowed goal left Ebbsfleet manager Steve Brown fuming on Saturday.

Charlie Sheringham was ruled offside when he got the final touch to a Brendan Kiernan shot in the first half of Saturday's game at Eastbourne Borough.

There was no flag from the assistant but referee Ryan Atkin stepped in to overrule his colleague.

Brown said: "From my perspective it’s a goal. From (Eastbourne manager) Tommy Widdrington’s perspective it’ll be offside. That’s what managers do.

"What concerns me is that you’ve got a linesman in line with play and it’s his job to understand the offside rule and give the appropriate decision.

"He’s in line and he doesn’t flag. How can a referee 40 yards from play then overrule that? What’s he said to the linesman? The linesman’s answer must be ‘no-one’s in an offside position otherwise I would have given it.’

"I can’t fathom it to be honest. But it’s given and it’s chalked off.

"I asked him at the end ‘how can you overturn something that you were 40 yards from?’ and he said ‘I can overturn it because I know the law’. That’s what you get."

It was 0-0 when Sheringham put the ball in the net. Gavin McCallum went on to give Eastbourne the lead, with Kenny Clark's header rescuing a point for the visitors.

Brown said: "The game would have been different because they would had had to come onto us more than they did. You see what happens when they take the lead – they can afford to sit behind it and counter on you. When you take the lead, they have to come onto you.

"We’re not a bad counter-attacking side. I’ve got good pace down the flanks, Rancey and McMahon can break from deep and Godden can drop in and turn and break with pace.

"It would have been a different game, there’s no two ways about that. No-one can convince me otherwise. If we were in front in that second half, we would have been a tough nut to crack and we would have countered on them.

"It’s just moments across a season. They add up, they stack up, and that’s another one for me that’s stacked up against us."

Aside from the controversy, Brown was happy with the character his players showed at Priory Lane.

"It’s pleasing that we came from behind," he said. "It’s not something we’ve done often. We went 1-0 down at Whitehawk and Basingstoke and didn’t come back, so from that perspective it’s pleasing.

"But throw in the chalked-off goal and the fact we hit the post and had one cleared off the line. In the last 20 minutes we had great opportunities with Cookie, McMahon, Godden and Sheringham.

"For me, it’s two points dropped but pleasing that we fell behind and came back."