|
Within hours of taking on the management position at Maidstone United, Andy Ford was thrown into the deep end as The Stones welcomed high-flying Hendon to the Homelands.
This was a spirited performance from the hosts and they had enough chances to have claimed all three points but after The Stones forced a late equaliser Ford will be pleased that his time with Maidstone did not start in the worst possible manner.
The Stones enjoyed the best of the opening exchanges and their first opportunity of the evening came on five minutes when Colin Richmond’s corner was headed back across the box by Simon Glover and it dropped to James Peacock who fired the ball out of the ground.
Then on 19 minutes Richmond’s free-kick into the box caused panic in the Hendon defence and Glover side footed the ball towards goal only for it to be cleared off the line.
However, the deadlock was broken five minutes later when Richmond drove in a corner which dropped to Danny Hockton and the Maidstone striker continued his excellent run of form as he lashed in his sixth goal in as many games.
Shortly afterwards Adrian Stone had a chance to extend The Stones’ lead but his shot from the edge of the area flew just wide and then after the break it was Hendon’s turn to enjoy a spell of pressure. On 52 minutes Andy Walker made a good double save to deny Danny Dyer and then Belal Aite-Ouakrim but Walker could not prevent the visitors from equalising on 55 minutes when Casey Maclaren headed the ball in from a corner.
Matters got worse for The Stones with twenty minutes to go when Tom Parkinson fouled Daniel Wishart inside the area and Jamie Busby thumped the penalty into the bottom left hand corner of the net.
Walker was then called into action again to make two important saves before Maidstone forced an equaliser with nine minutes remaining. Richmond’s free-kick into the area was headed on by Peacock and looked to be looping out of play until Parkinson raced towards the touchline and sent the ball back into the middle where it was headed in by the impressive Joe Vines.
There after The Stones were much the stronger side and they had three good opportunities to nick the win but unfortunately they could not find their way past Berkley Laurencin in the Hendon goal for the third time in the evening.
<
< < Back to match reports index
|
