Maidstone 2 - 1 Burnt Ash

A cooler chill to the October afternoon welcomed players to Maidstone’s second home fixture of the season.

Burnt Ash, the visitors, came out victors last time they visited ME14. However, on their travels in the second half of the season Maidstone were at their best - winning 4-1.

As soon as the whistle was blown Maidstone crafted chance after chance in the opening stages of the game pressing a nervy Burnt Ash backline. Unfortunately, they lacked that clinical finesse needed to separate the sides.

Against the run of play, Burnt Ash won the ball in the Maidstone D and opened the scoring with their penultimate shot of the game.

Standard procedure resumed. Despite being slow when moving the ball around the back, Maidstone’s forwards found space to run hard at the Burnt Ash defence. With their first short corner of the game Maidstone equalised. Chris Howson, following his hat-trick the week prior, executed a pinpoint drag flick that went into the side-netting at the right post.

The score remained at evens thanks to excellent saves from Burnt Ash’s number one.

Maidstone thought they’d taken the lead in the first ten minutes following the break after some fast hands from Ben Stott took the ball onto his reverse. A sharp shot looked destined for the goal but somehow managed to hit the smallest margin of the post and canon back into the D. Many Maidstone men naively celebrated what they thought was Stott’s first goal in the blue and royal yellow.

Stick tackles crept into what was, at times, a scrapper encounter. This saw Maidstone down to ten and sometimes nine men in the second half. With just nine of the pitch Maidstone still manoeuvred the ball comfortably and controlled the tempo of the game. Some decent interplay down the right hand side and chaos ensued in the Burnt Ash D. A good and proper goal line scramble saw the ball bundle around the goal. Finally, Rob Clarkson tapped home from a yard to give Maidstone a hard earned and well deserved lead.

The Men’s 1s were professional in the final ten minutes. Some textbook Italian time management endured the ball wasn’t in play for the majority of those minutes. When it was in play, it was moved around well. Burnt Ash panted and puffed in their efforts to find the Kookaburra Sentinel to have the opportunity to equalise. They were not given that. 2-1.

Three on the run and bouncing!