FOOTBALL fans heading to the Community Shield match at Wembley were left furious when an understaffed rail operator had to cancel its service.

A number of supporters were making the journey from Oxford to Wembley Stadium for the face-off between Manchester City and Chelsea on Sunday.

But Chiltern Railways cancelled a pre-kick off train from Oxford railway station to to London Marylebone saying it didn't have enough staff.

A number of fans hopped onto a later service at 1.09pm and were just able to make it in time for kick off - but due to overcrowding many had to wait for the next service and ended up being late.

One fan, Pedro Arroyo, was lucky enough to get a space on the later train - but said he saw many others who would have been late.

He said: "A lot of people were waiting on the station and they could not get on the later train because it was very crammed and so they had to wait for another train, making them late.

"The main reason for the initial cancellation, according to the information service at the station, was that they didn't have a driver for the train.

"This just shows that they're not interested in customer service.

"Hundreds of people were left waiting in several stations because there was not place and ended up coming late to the match."

The rail operator apologised and said a lack of 'available train crew' had led to cancellations.