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At the fourth attempt The Stones have finally registered their first point of the season thanks to an unfortunate own goal by Laurence Ball.
Maidstone will be disappointed not to have claimed all three points though as for the third game in the a row they failed to hold onto the lead and finally succumbed to concerted pressure from Margate when Wayne Wilson struck a fabulous equaliser just six minutes from time.
This was an entertaining game with plenty of goalmouth action to entertain the bumper crowd at Hartsdown Park. On eight minutes Shaun Welford was fouled and Wilson whipped in the resultant free-kick which struck Simon Glover and deflected just wide of the left hand post.
Then two minutes later Wilson found Welford with a deep cross and the former Dover striker headed the ball wide.
Shortly afterwards The Stones had their first attempt on goal after the excellent Jake Hobbs found Adrian Stone out on the right wing. Stone’s ball into Danny Hockton wasn’t ideal and he could not generate enough power behind his shot to beat Jamie Turner in the Margate goal.
The game immediately swung to the other end as former Stones favourite Aaron Lacy was left in acres of space and given enough time to deliver the ball to another Maidstone player, James Pinnock, who should have done better with his headed effort.
After this Maidstone began to put the home side under pressure and on 19 minutes a decent corner from Colin Richmond dropped to Stone who turned and fired a fierce shot goalwards only for Turner to make a smart block.
It was then the home side’s turn to dominate and on 25 minutes Lacy was once again left in space and this time he found Curtis Robinson who shot just over the bar and then two minutes later Welford got on the end of a long kick from Turner but Walker made a good stop.
Sixty seconds later Maidstone nearly paid the price for leaving Lacy in space on the right as he lofted a good cross into the box which was met by Darren Marsden and he saw his header strike the bottom of the post before being gathered by Walker.
After the break Margate put The Stones under pressure once again and they went close on 57 minutes when Walker was drawn from his goal to head the ball and it fell to Pinnock but he failed to hit the target with his lobbed shot.
However, the deadlock was broken on 64 minutes when Walker launched a long goal kick down field which Ball connected with and his flicked header flew into the net past the stranded Turner.
Going behind meant that Margate were once again keen to exert pressure on The Stones but Maidstone were still occasionally creating chances and on 76 minutes Stone connected with a free-kick from Richmond but his header was stopped by Turner.
Unfortunately for Maidstone though they could not stop the home side from equalising six minutes from time when Wilson gained possession just outside the area and curled the ball into the top right hand corner of the net.
Two minutes later Hobbs ‘ determination saw him win the ball and run into the area but just as he was about to shoot he was denied by an excellent sliding challenge from Robinson. Then with the game in stoppage time there was a scare for Maidstone as a goalmouth scramble resulted in the ball being cleared off the line but The Stones held on to gain a valuable point.
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