Boro fans in scramble to get to Wembley

The club has asked supporters to help make Wembley a "sea of red" [Getty Images] Middlesbrough fans have been scrambling to secure Wembley tickets, travel and accommodation after it was confirmed the team would definitely compete in Saturday's Championship play-off final . Original finalists Southampton had their appeal against expulsion from the play-offs for spying on other clubs' training sessions thrown out late on Wednesday, meaning Boro were reinstated and will face Hull City for a place in the Premier League. Boro's head of supporter engagement Craig McManus said the club had doubled its staffing to support fans getting down to London.

But he warned transport options were "extremely limited" due to a combination of other national events and planned engineering works. McManus urged fans to come forward if they were having trouble securing tickets. "We've got everyone all hands on deck," he said.

"We've got a lot of canny fans and they've already booked their hotels and trains many, many months ago and they've held on to that. " The spygate scandal marred the Championship play-offs [PA] Engineering works mean LNER train services will be reduced in frequency at the weekend with replacement coaches operating between York, Northallerton and Darlington. However, the train company announced it was putting on an extra service each way between York and London.

City of York Council and First Bus also extended the opening hours of all six of its Park & Ride sites until midnight. Meanwhile, the club said most of the spots on its official Travel Club coaches had been sold but a "very small number of additional buses may be made available over the coming days". A limited number of buses would also be made available directly from National Express.