Maidstone United extended their unbeaten run to eight games thanks to two goals from Andy Martin.
Despite The Stones being forced to partner the injured duo of Mario McNish and Ben Lewis in central defence, this was Maidstone’s strongest performance of the season and once they had weathered Folkestone’s bright start, they dominated for long periods of the game.
Certainly Alan Walker was delighted with his team’s showing saying: “I think today we have come of age as a side. Our performance was fantastic as we kept our concentration and we defended well and hardly gave them a chance. We played some great football as well. I think we were worthy 2-0 winners and we could have scored more goals.”
There could have been a very different outcome to this game though had Folkestone taken the lead with just 8 minutes played. The ball came out to James Corbett on the edge of the box and he showed great technique to swivel and hit a rising drive goalwards which was expertly tipped over by Pat Mullin.
Four minutes later, The Stones had their first opportunity when a good move started by Ray Freeman and Andy Martin saw Luis Cumbers burst into the box but he knocked the ball wider than he would have liked and he couldn’t recover to get his shot on target.
On 20 minutes, Maidstone had an excellent chance to take the lead when Cumbers released Rob Owen in the box and with just Charlie Mitten to beat and with Andy Martin in space to his left, Owen hit a weak shot into the Folkestone keeper’s hands.
Going forwards, The Stones were looking threatening and on 34 minutes, Tom Bryant’s header fell to Cumbers who crossed towards the near post and only some brave defending from Frankie Chappell prevented Martin from opening the scoring.
For the first thirty minutes of the second half, The Stones pushed Folkestone back at every opportunity and at times the visitors struggled to escape from their own half. With 62 minutes played, Nathan Paul drilled a low ball back across the box which was missed by Owen. However, the opportunity fell to Freeman but he lofted his shot high and wide.
With Maidstone being so dominant, there was always the fear that the longer the match went on, the greater the chance that Folkestone would hit The Stones on the break and score a winner but United finally made their pressure tell when they took the lead on 73 minutes. Aaron Lacy’s corner from the left was weakly punched by Mitten and Martin pounced to score from close range.
Three minutes later, Maidstone made sure of their fifth home Ryman Premier League win of the campaign with a delightful goal. Owen did well to win two tackles in midfield and he placed a perfectly weighted pass into the path of Martin. The Maidstone striker entered the box and shaped to shoot which caused Mitten to fall to the ground leaving Martin to curl a neat finish into the left hand corner of the net and register his fifth goal of the season.
< <
< Back to match reports index |
