HARRY Lee’s East Thurrock United career has come to an end due to his commitments on The Only Way Is Essex, insists John Coventry.

Lee has been a regular for Rocks, who were relegated despite their impressive 4-1 win over National League South high-flyers Welling United on Monday.

But Lee made himself unavailable for tomorrow’s trip to Hungerford Town due to working on the hit ITV show and Coventry has decided to end the midfielder’s stay at the club.

“Harry has played his last game for me, that’s for sure,” said the East Thurrock boss.

“When Harry first got involved in The Only Way Is Essex, he told me that it would have no impact on his availability for us.

“But he has now told me that he can’t play this weekend because of it and that annoyed me, so I’ve told him not to bother coming back.

“If he had told me to start with that he would be unavailable for games then I could have released him and brought in someone else when I could still bring people in.

“But I can’t do that now and I’ve got only 12 or possibly 13 players to take to Hungerford tomorrow.”

East Thurrock’s long battle against the drop came to an end earlier this week.

Despite getting the better of Welling on a day when the club celebrated 50 years since being founded, Hungerford’s last-gasp 1-0 victory over champions Torquay United confirmed Rocks’ relegation.

East Thurrock’s three-year stay in the second tier of non-league football began against Hungerford, while the Berkshire outfit won at Rookery Hill to ensure their safety 12 months ago.

Coventry was disappointed with how his side’s drop came about.

“When you’re winning the game and playing like we were, it’s disappointing that it still wasn’t enough to take it to the final day of the season,” added Coventry.

“I was choked after the game because of being relegated and it impacted on how I was able to celebrate the club’s 50th birthday because, as you can imagine, it changed my emotions.

“We were 3-1 up and running three or four minutes behind Hungerford’s game at Torquay because of a stoppage. We thought we had done enough to take it to the last day and then there was a big hush in the crowd and we knew someone must have scored.

“Then we realised Hungerford had scored a last minute winner and that would be us relegated.

“It was hard to take and, although I had convinced myself that going down would be the best, it was a bitter pill to swallow.

“Hungerford came to us and stayed up on the final day last season and I was hoping it would be our turn this time.”