COWES Sports boss Derek Ohren claims his attempts to help troubled neighbours Newport IoW have been thrown back in his face.

Since the receivers cancelled all playing contracts at St George's Park, Port have lost virtually all their mainland players and have been relying on Island support to get them through their crisis.

Despite a history of bad feeling between the clubs, Ohren - a former Newport man - generously waived notice of approach for three Cowes players to temporarily bolster Bunny Warwick's dwindling squad, but he claims the agreement has been broken.

According to Ohren, two of the players, Ian Stevens and Emlyn Hughes, had been due back at Westwood Park this Saturday to turn out for Andy Butler's Cowes Sports A team in the Island League.

But not only have both players phoned this week to say they want to stay with Newport, but Port are now expressing an interest in Cowes' first-team squad man Michael Perry - ironically one of many players to join the Yachtsmen last summer when Port disbanded their reserve side.

Much as Ohren wants to see the Dr Martens club win their battle for survival, he claims they are only interested in Island players when it suits them.

He said: "They were full of praise for their decision to get rid of their reserve and Island League sides and now they've got no players of their own, they're taking the mickey - and I'm disappointed with the players' lack of loyalty too.

"Cowes went out of their way to put a reserve side in the Wessex Combination when Newport scrapped theirs because we wanted to ensure players would keep progressing to Wessex standard, but now they've thrown it back in our face. Over the years there's been a lot of bad feeling between the clubs, but I don't want to see Newport go under, so I allowed them to sign three players in two weeks. Now they've come back for one of my better players (Perry), expecting me to waive the seven days' notice of approach.

"I was trying to build bridges with Newport, but they've taken advantage of my festive spirit and now I've got the Cowes committee on my back because we've lost three players from our struggling Island Division 1 side."

What makes it worse in Ohren's eyes is that, when Newport had squad players going spare at the start of the season, they farmed them out to mainland outfit Brockenhurst.

He said: "We've always relied on Newport's cast-offs but they totally snubbed us by sending players to Brockenhurst, yet now they're in trouble they're asking us to help. It's left a bad taste in people's mouths at Cowes and any dealings now have got to go through the correct procedure with our secretary rather than through me."

The deadline for bids to buy Newport expired yesterday and the receivers, BDO Stoy Hayward of Southampton, are due to make an announcement about the club's future in the next 24 hours.

Saturday's game at home to Burgess Hill Town should be going ahead. Provided there are no dramatic team changes, senior player Ian Buckman will take charge in place of acting boss Warwick, who is off on a pre-arranged family holiday.