JACK-of-all-trades James Taylor has taken the blame for Saturday’s kit fiasco at Bournemouth Poppies.

The Sydenhams Premier fixture at Victoria Park was postponed because Taylor’s Team Solent side arrived with a red kit – the same colour Poppies have been wearing for more than 100 years – and Bournemouth’s yellow and blue away strip was in the launderette.

Poppies boss Ken Vaughan suggested that Solent’s “secretary, kit man or whoever needs to hold up their hands” about the mix-up, which brought a wry smile to the face of former England C international  Taylor who took multi-tasking to a new level that day.

He confessed: “No excuses, it was my fault. Sorting out the kit was one of about 50 jobs I had to do and, for some reason, I always assumed Poppies played in blue.

“I read someone saying it was down to the kit man – and I’m sure it would have been if we had one!

“We haven’t got a minibus driver either and our secretary was away on annual leave, so I did those jobs too.

“I was down to play, do the warm-up, fill the waterbottles, collect the kit and get it washed. There weren’t many jobs I wasn’t doing on the day, so I might as well take the blame for the kit mix-up too!

“It’s not as though we didn’t try and play the game," added the former Havant & Waterlooville, AFC Totton and Bashley targetman. "We offered to play in bibs and black shirts.

“It had taken us two-and-a-half hours to get there and we’d brought lads down from London, so it’s not about us not trying. It was just a complete b****-up.

“I’ve seen it happen a few times when the home side has had to lend the opposition a kit, but unfortunately everything that could go wrong did go wrong on Saturday.

"But when you think about what happened to those Worthing players in the Shoreham plane crash, it does put bringing the wrong kit into a different perspective.”

Team Solent got back to action last night, losing an eight-goal thriller 5-3 against Fareham Town.

Having hit back to lead 2-1 through Matt Sheedy and Mitch Speechley-Price, they fell 4-2 into arrears, hit back for 4-3 through Oliver Goodard and then conceded again in stoppage-time.

Callum Laycock (2), Ash Tattersall, Simon Woods and George Davis netted for Fareham.

“It could have gone either way,” said Taylor. “Neither defence was particularly tight to say the least, but Fareham took more chances than we did. It was entertaining game – but not for the managers!”