King's Lynn Stars fans have been accused of 'acting like football hooligans'.

Swindon team boss Alun Rossiter made the claim after his team's last heat heartache at King's Lynn on Monday night, narrowly missing out on a place in the Premiership Knockout Cup final.

Lynn were two points ahead on aggregate going into the final race and tensions increased when Troy Batchelor and home skipper Robert Lambert tangled in the opening turns, causing the Stars man to come down - much to the displeasure of the Lynn faithful.

The race was re-run and Lynn won 5-1 to win 51-39 – and 93-87 on aggregate.

It was that last race incident which left Rossiter fuming.

'I was a bit disappointed in the response from their supporters,' he said. 'They were more like football hooligans and I was absolutely disgusted with it.

'If it had been the fault of one of our boys then I could perhaps understand it a little bit more. But it wasn't even in the first corner; Robert Lambert was just the meat in the sandwich in what was a hard run into the first bend all-round.

'I've always had a good time when I've come to King's Lynn but their response was so uncalled for and it was disgraceful – they were like football thugs. With the things that went on, that should never happen in speedway.

'It would've been nice to reach a cup final but that just sums up our season though I guess and again it was obviously something that just wasn't meant to be.'

Lynn had to cope with the absence of the injured Ty Proctor and lost Niels Kristian-Iversen midway through the meeting,

Stars team boss Dale Allitt said: 'It got a bit nervy towards the end and it was a really bad crash with Robert in heat 15.

'I'm not completely convinced that there wasn't a little bit to it and I think we were a little bit harshly done to that we ended up with all four back for the re-run. But Robert got himself up off the floor with a knock and a completely destroyed bike and epitomised the whole team spirit once again; we don't give up, we don't lie down and roll over, we fight until the very end.'