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Maidstone United rounded off their pre-season campaign with a comfortable victory away at Bly Spartans to ensure that they go into their inaugural season in the Ryman Premier League having been beaten only twice in the last nine games.
The game was as dull as the unseasonable weather conditions but with eighteen minutes played, some good individual skill from Mo Takaloo saw him jink around a couple of Bly Spartans defenders before knocking the ball in from a tight angle. However, within sixty seconds The Stones had conceded an equaliser when sloppy defending allowed the unmarked Ashley Cooper to head past Pat Mullin.
Errison Ahwan then went close with a trademark volley on twenty five minutes before Craig Wilkins had a header cleared off the line following a Sam Tydeman corner.
With six minutes remaining in the first half, Nathan Paul picked out Simon Austin in the area and Austin came within inches of volleying in a superb second goal for The Stones and then Darren Watson made an excellent save in the Bly goal to stop a side footed effort from Tydeman.
However, Watson could not prevent Maidstone finally regaining the lead just one minute before the interval when a deep corner from Austin fell to Ben Lewis who swivelled and volleyed in a fantastic first goal for The Stones.
Lloyd Hume sent out an entirely different eleven players in the second half and gave a debut to Rob Owen whilst Kane Rice turned out for the home side.
Owen was involved in much of Maidstone’s play and he even tested Watson on two occasions. The first time was on seventy two minutes when he forced the Bly keeper to palm his shot over on and then shortly before the end of the game he had a shot cleared off the line.
United did add a third goal to their tally though as on seventy minutes, Alex Tiesse got his second of the season when he collected the ball outside the box before drawing Watson from his goal and finishing neatly inside the left hand post.
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