Fan's anger at Spygate after flying from Australia

A football fan who flew to the UK from Australia has spoken of his "anger" and "disappointment" at the decision that saw his club being kicked out of the play-off final.

Ian Mcauley, 71, has been a Southampton fan since he was seven, and it was his life-long love for the club that made him take a 22-hour flight from his home in Perth to see them play.

The English Football League (EFL) charged Saints with spying on the training sessions of Oxford United and Ipswich Town, and filming Middlesbrough during their preparation for the play-off semi-final.

Mcauley was in the air when the decision to kick Southampton out of the final and only found out when he landed.

When he found out the club was going through to the playoff final, Mcauley said he had been "ecstatic" and "jumping around in the front room".

"I was just over the moon because I was very fortunate enough to come to the previous one.

"My wife arranged that for me and we got tickets. She said to me 'What's the chance of you ever going to Wembley and see Southampton win?' and I thought about that and I said 'Probably quite remote'."

He booked 2 plane tickets after the semi-final victory over Middlesbrough on 12 May, to go and watch the final with his cousin, which cost him $6,500 (£3,449).

"I left Perth Wednesday night at 10 and I landed in Dubai and a report came through from probably 20 different people saying the game was off."

Mcauley says he still remembers the "excitement" of going to a match for the first time with his father: "Once the game was over, that was it, I'm forever hooked."

His uncle, Ron Reynolds, was a goalkeeper who signed from Tottenham Hotspur to Southampton in the 1960s and gave him his first pair of football boots.

"I loved my football then still but he was the first man that got me interested in club football."

His family left for Australia in 1970 but he has kept up with Southampton, despite the distance and time difference, through his uncle, newspapers, Tv and now, social media.

He says that fans in Australia had set up their own fan club there: "On the big games they book out the casino and there's ending up to probably 1,000 - 2,000 people that go along to support Saints."

"I'm not a very emotional person but it's tough stuff because the players, the supporters have done nothing," Mcauley says.

"To me, it looked like a witch hunt - there seemed to be a lot of people coming to the fore saying things to try and get us kicked out, for whatever reason.

"That was a bit of a shock, because Southampton has always been known, in my lifetime, as a club that does things right, ... and it's a club I've been extremely proud to be associated with for all my time."

He said he would like to see the final report and "exactly what was said and how they came to that conclusion and make sure that everything was fair and above board".

"If I knew exactly what's being said, I think it's the right decision," he said, but added that to him, the process had been "extremely rushed".

"They were charged on on a Friday and they played the first game on the Saturday - that game should have been stopped ... not play two games and then let Saints sell tickets to [about] 37,000 people coming from all over the world."

Southampton described the punishment as an "extremely disappointing outcome" but said it was "clear that trust now needs to be rebuilt".