Herne Bay 0-1 Maidstone United - The mission was to come here to a tough place and get Maidstone United Football Club into the draw for the next round of The FA Cup, says delighted manager George Elokobi

Herne Bay 0 – 1 Maidstone United
Location	Winch's Field, Stanley Gardens, Herne Bay, Kent CT6 5SG
Kickoff	28/09/2024 15:00

HERNE BAY  0-1  MAIDSTONE UNITED
The Emirates FA Cup Third Qualifying Round
Saturday 28 September 2024
Stephen McCartney reports from Winch’s Field

MAIDSTONE UNITED manager George Elokobi says the pressure was on his side to come here and get a result because everyone loves an upset in The FA Cup after comfortably beating Herne Bay to seal their passage into the Fourth and final Qualifying Round.

The Stones defeated Steyning Town (4-1), Winchester City (2-0) and Torquay United (2-0) in the qualifying rounds last season, before beating Chesham United 2-0 in the First Round. 

The sixth-tier side than upset Stevenage (1-0) and Championship and Premier League bound Ipswich Town were stunned 2-1 at Portman Road in the Fourth Round before Elokobi’s side were thrashed 5-0 at second-tier Coventry City in the last 16.

Maidstone United arrived at Winch’s Field sitting in sixteenth-place in the Vanarama National League South table with 10 points on the board from their nine games, while Herne Bay have plenty of games in hand on all of their Isthmian League South East Division rivals, having picked up four points from their three games and were also in sixteenth-place in the table.

Maidstone United beat their league rivals Hampton & Richmond 2-1 at home a couple of weeks ago, but this was the eighth time that Herne Bay have reached this stage of The FA Cup.

The Bay have beaten Rayners Lane (2-1 after a 2-2 home draw) in the Preliminary Round, before beating Ashford Town (Middlesex) 1-0 and Hendon
3-0.

The visit of Maidstone United attracted Herne Bay’s second largest crowd as 1,997 fans flocked through the turnstiles to watch Maidstone United reach the next round, courtesy of a headed own goal from Herne Bay centre-half Skye Salmon four minutes before half-time.

The record attendance here was when 2,303 watched Margate win a FA Cup Fourth Qualifying Round tie by a single goal back in 1970, while 1,810 watched Simon Halsey’s side claim a 2-2 draw against West Auckland Town in The FA Vase Semi-Finals on 24 March 2012, before their Wembley dream was ended by losing the away leg 2-1 seven days later, watched by 1,840 in the North East.

“Very good performance from all of the boys. We gave everything, can’t fault anybody, they’ve run their socks off against a team two leagues above,” said Herne Bay manager Steve Lovell, 64.

“I’m just disappointed with the way we lost it with that own goal but I can’t have a go at anybody in there today, they’ve given everything up until the last kick of the game when we had a chance to perhaps nick it, nick a draw.

“But when you’re up against opposition two league’s above you, you expect to be put under pressure, be closed down, which they did. They didn’t give us the time that we get in (Isthmian) League games but it was a good performance.  Everybody gave everything and you can’t ask no more than that.”

Maidstone United’s Cameroon born manager Elokobi, 38, said: “A fantastic performance from our players. We came here knowing it was going to be a difficult place to come and also credit for Herne Bay, I thought they gave us a few problems towards the end, which is good to see.

“But the boys managed the game technically in terms of in possession, out of possession, denied Herne Bay some of the territory for them to play because they’ve got quite a few good players in midfield, and we matched them up in there to ensure that when we do that can we try to hurt them in the areas that our scouting reports told us.

“The mission was to come here to a tough place and get Maidstone United Football Club into the next, or the draw for the next round of The FA Cup and our group of players have done that today, so fantastic, well done to them.”

Herne Bay created their first of very few openings after only 39 seconds when holding midfielder Scott Heard switched the play from the right into the middle but advanced left-back Frankie Smith hooked his left-footed half-volley high over the bar while left in space some 25-yards out.

Lovell said: “When it fell to him, I think he maybe had a chance of doing a little bit better with it but he skied it high and wide. 

“It was fine, it was fine. Our shape was good and defensively we were good, it’s just on the ball we weren’t the best.

Maidstone United bossed possession and created their first opening with four minutes and 13 seconds on the clock.

Holding midfielder Jordan Higgs threw the ball short to fellow midfielder Antony Papadopoulous, before right-winger Charlie Seaman floated in a cross towards the near post for lone striker Shaquile Coulthirst to place his header past the right-hand post from eight-yards.

Maidstone United found Herne Bay’s back four resilient with centre-half Liam Friend leading the line well and the home side made numerous defensive third blocks as the visitors’ dominated.

Towering centre-half Reiss Greenidge played the ball inside to his defensive partner George Fowler, who fed Higgs, who played a first time pass down the left channel to release attacking midfielder Sam Corne, who reached the by-line before cutting the ball back for Coulthirst’s left-footed swept shot to be blocked by Friend in the 22^nd minute.

Herne Bay were not given any time to keep possession of the ball, which frustrated Lovell.

“Just disappointed really when we got the ball that we didn’t use it better than we have been but that’s down to the opposition, that’s down to the opposition working hard,” explained the Welshman.

“They’re full-time, they work every week, they’re fit so the fitness levels today are higher than we play most weeks.

“It was a good test, a good test for us, a good confidence booster for our boys. We haven’t been hammered and it’s just a shame we lost on that goal.”

Elokbi added: “That was our message to our group of players at the end of last week’s game (2-2 draw at home to Chesham United).

“As much as we were still a little bit wounded after conceding such a late goal, it was important we put that disappointment to a side and we look forward to this game, which was going to be our next game.

“The boys, they’ve been working really well. We’ve worked exceptionally hard during the week ensuring that we told them what the game plan was going to be, in possession, out of possession, our strategy and making sure everyone knew what their roles and responsibilities were and it was good to see the boys go out there and express themselves.”

Maidstone United’s high left-back Ben Brookes swept a free-kick into the Herne Bay penalty area and the Stones enjoyed a spell of possession in and around the penalty area before Jon Benton floated the ball back into the box from the right and Corne steered his header across the keeper and past the far post from 10-yards.

Maidstone United were to be denied a deserved lead in the 36^th minute when the post came to goalkeeper Harry Brooks rescue following another set-piece.

Fowler delivered a hanging free-kick into the Herne Bay box, which was headed away by Friend before Ben Brookes recycled the ball back into the penalty area and right-back Temi Eweka (who was up for the initial set-piece) rose to loop his header against the left (far) post from 10-yards.

“When you look at the chances we created in the first half and the keeper made a couple of saves, we’ve hit the post,” added Elokobi.

“It was important that we kept going, our heads didn’t drop.  We kept going because we have to be a little bit clinical at times.  Yes we should’ve been (clinical) in the first and the second half.”

Lovell, who was without the suspended Kane Rowland, who was sent-off for an off-the-ball incident at Littlehampton Town on the opening weekend of the season, added: “He had a free header, there was no marking. I just wanted to make sure that people were picked up.  That was the only time anybody got a free header, so it happens in the game.  You don’t go through the game and people aren’t going to pick up but that was their chance.”

Another chance came Maidstone United’s way just 33 seconds later when Benton put the ball back into the penalty area and Corne’s free downward header from 10-yards bounced into the gloves of Harry Brooks for a comfortable save.

Maidstone United deserved their lead when it arrived with 40:01 on the clock but it was a harsh way to lose a FA Cup tie for Herne Bay.

Greenidge played the ball along the deck for Papadopoulos, who drove forward on a 20-yard run before slipping the ball through to Benton, who put the ball into the Herne Bay penalty area from within the final third.

Goalkeeper Harry Brooks rushed out and a miss-communication saw Salmon (15-yards from goal) head the ball beyond the onrushing goalkeeper to roll into the empty goal.

Elokobi said: “We’ve been working on triggers, making sure we recognise triggers and when to actually press aggressively, assertively and the players recognised that today and they put their centre-back under immense pressure like we saw last week against us against Chesham at home.

“They put our defenders under immense pressure and it led to a mistake but it cost us a goal and that’s exactly what’s happened here today as well.

“We’ll take that bit of luck.  We haven’t had the luck this season, so hopefully that will be the start of making to come.”

Lovell said: “Well, Harry’s come frying out and he’s shouted at Skye ‘keeper’s!’ but it was too late.  Skye was already there to head it.  Skye’s headed it back to where he thinks Harry is, so it’s just a mix-up, bad communication.

“It happens, it happens in games and we haven’t had many of them this year and that’s the first one ironically but it’s cost us the game and that’s the only disappointing thing is to lose a game with something that we caused ourselves.”

Lovell added: “I was disappointed with the goal, obviously, but you try to skip through that (during the interval). 

“I made one change. I brought Mo (Kamara) off. I just wanted to change the shape of the team. I thought we didn’t need four at the back.  They only played one up front so we went with three at the back and pushed our wing-backs on and played a 3-4-3 or 3-4-1-2 to try and cause problems going forward a little bit and it worked to a certain degree but again we didn’t cause them too many problems.”

Lovell made a tactical switch at the interval by hooking Mohammed Kamara (who played on the left of a midfield diamond, with Heard at the bottom, Kamara and Kane Haysman on the side and Ethan Smith at the tip.

Joel-Michael Oderniran slotted in at left-back, which allowed Frankie Smith to work in a left-wing role but the home side found Greenidge and Fowler a tough nut to crack.

Elokobi said: “We nullified (Herne Bay’s threat). If we gave them time on the ball, they will hurt us in the wide areas in terms of the diagonal passes that they would’ve hit, which is going to put us on the back foot, which will make us face our own goal but we didn’t give them lots of chances.”

With several of the Maidstone United players built like brick (you know the word!), Herne Bay’s part-time players couldn’t find the quality needed to force a replay.

“The only disappointing thing for me is that when we had the ball, we didn’t use it as well as we have been doing,” added Lovell.

Maidstone United created their first opening after only 31 seconds when Ben Brookes threw the ball short to Papadopoulos, who cut in from the left and as space opened up cracked a right-footed angled drive from 25-yards, which was gathered by the Herne Bay goalkeeper at the second attempt.

Ben Brookes floated in a cross from within the left-channel towards the back post where Seaman guided his towering header over the Herne Bay crossbar from eight-yards.

Herne Bay’s left-footed right-back Jack Parter floated in a free-kick from the left into a crowd of players and Friend’s towering header sailed harmlessly wide with just 168 seconds on the second half watch.

Seaman launched a long throw into the Herne Bay penalty area and Greenidge’s near-post header was comfortably caught by Harry Brooks at his near-post.

Ben Brookes took the away side’s fourth of seven corners in the 59^th minute and the ball came back out to him before he cut inside and curled his long-range 35-yard effort around the far post.

Salmon launched a deep free-kick beyond a very high line of Maidstone United defenders outside their penalty area and the excellent Friend got his header on target but it wasn’t going to trouble French goalkeeper Alexis Andre Jr.

Herne Bay goalkeeper Harry Brooks, meanwhile, was called into making a great save in the 63^rd minute, as Maidstone United kept knocking on the door.

Seaman cut the ball onto his left-foot and delivered a deep cross from within the right channel and was met by Eweka, whose header was pushed up by Brooks at his near-post and the ball was met by Greenidge’s head inside the six-yard box and his header across the face of goal was headed over by Friend.

“He’s been great, Harry’s been great.  I’ve got no worries about Harry. He’s deserved his place in the team,” said Lovell.

“After last year, he’s come on and been really good for us this year but the goal did really disappoint me.”

Herne Bay almost snatched an equaliser with 23:38 on the clock, following a set-piece.

Heard floated a right-footed free-kick into the Maidstone United penalty area from within the centre-circle and a couple of headers from Friend and quiet striker Michael Salako saw the ball fall to Ukranian attacking midfielder Artem Kuchkov, who has signed a contract to stay at he club until the end of the season.

Kuchkov hooked his right-footed shot towards goal from 16-yards, but Andre Jr dropped down to his knees and made a comfortable save into his midriff.

“We had half-chances that came along but it wasn’t the chances that we’ve been getting, the chances we’ve been getting we’ve been taking but it’s down to them, they (Maidstone) defended well,” said Lovell.

“He’s going to be a good player Artem.  Games like this will only help him. I thought he kept working, kept trying but he got no change from them.  Their defenders today, they were good. They were good defensively and they didn’t allow us time to settle so we couldn’t create too many chances.”

The six-goal Salako, who often ventures wide left rather than operating as a traditional central number nine striker, was living off scraps.

“Exactly, they’re two leagues higher and they play in that League every week and Michael like everybody, they gave a good shift of themselves.  We didn’t create enough opportunities really today and that is the way that they defended, they defended very well,” said Lovell.

The Herne Bay goalkeeper made a comfortable save as Papadopoulos stroked a right-footed drive towards goal from 30-yards, but it appeared that Maidstone United would score with their heads rather than their feet during this game.

Coulthirst drove towards the corner of the Herne Bay penalty area before Herne Bay’s centre-half Salmon was booked for his challenge and Seaman whipped his right-footed free-kick just over the crossbar, while aiming for the top far corner (38:20).

Herne Bay left it late to have a go at their higher-league opponents, with their  best chance of the match to steal a replay with 44:26 on the clock.

Substitute striker Joshua Reid rolled the ball out to Parter on the right, who played the ball along the artificial turf to put Reid through on goal but his right-footed drive was pushed over the crossbar by Andre Jr’s outstretched two hands in the centre of his goal.

“Oh yes, it was a good save but you could see it was going in the top corner and he’s made a good save,” said Lovell.

“That was probably the only one of any note. I don’t think Harry made any saves of note. He made one, the header he pushed up but that was about it really.”

Elokobi was full of praise for his 27-year-old goalkeeper.

“Alexis is so calm, he’s been so immense for us. He’s made some blinding saves in the last few games and he’s been very steady.

“It’s very important that we looked at every game, looked at the situations and the key moments in games and when called upon he’s always stood firm and kept us in the game.

“It was a dominant performance with us in possession, however, when called upon, the last five minutes, he kept the defensive line very, very calm and composed and we managed to see out the game and really, really delighted with Alexis’ performances.”

Herne Bay forced their second and third corners deep into stoppage time (referee Steven Hughes blew his full-time whistle at 52:00) and Frankie Smith swung in a corner from the right and Andre Jr moved swiftly to his left to deny the Herne Bay goalkeeper Harry Brooks at the near-post inside the six-yard box, as Maidstone United ran out deserved winners.

“Talk is cheap and it’s about putting it in action and our players have done that throughout the week in terms of how they execute them in training,” said Elokobi, who you can tell he is immensely proud of last season’s epic FA Cup run.

“We don’t want to be front paper or back pages.  We want to make sure that we get the club to the next round of the competition and that’s exactly what we’ve done today and that’s credit to the group of players we’ve got in terms of the respect we’ve shown Herne Bay.

“The pressure was on Maidstone United to come here and get a result. I didn’t want to disregard Herne Bay but everyone loves an upset in The FA Cup, don’t they, so we understand that and we didn’t want to be on the end of that.

“We take it, delighted that we are in the hat for Monday’s draw and now we can enjoy the victory, small steps, lots of positives from this game and we look forward to next week’s game.”

Hosts Worthing are in 12^th place in the Vanarama National League South table with 13 points from eight games.  They knocked Adrian Pennock’s Isthmian League Premier Division side Dartford out of The FA Cup today with a 3-1 win at Woodside Road.

“We don’t look at that (Fourth Qualifying Round or FA Cup First Round potential tie), we look at the next game. We have to look at Worthing. Worthing is our next game and we go from there,” said Elokobi.

“Every game is tough, every game is tough. Now we’ve got to get the players recovered and then we’ll see what next week brings, thank you very much.”

Herne Bay have slipped a place to the bottom six in the table and they travel to newly-promoted Isthmian Premier Division side Chichester City next Saturday in The FA Trophy Third Qualifying Round.

Chichester City beat Folkestone Invicta 2-1 at home in the league today and are in the top eight in the table with 13 points from their eight games, a point adrift of the play-offs, while Herne Bay have Three Bridges (three points from six games), Littlehampton Town (three from five), Lancing (three points from six), Ashford United (two points from four) and Phoenix Sports (one point from eight) beneath them in the pecking order tonight.

Lovell said: “We’ll dust ourselves down, we’ll train this week and go again at Chichester next week in The FA Trophy.

“I’d like to thank everybody that came down today, it made for a great day. The boys enjoyed it, I hope they enjoyed it and I’m really disappointed, it would’ve been lovely to go back to Maidstone on Tuesday for a replay.

“If we had lost four or five, I would’ve come in here and well say that’s it. To lose to that own goal is a bit sickening.

“There wasn’t much in the game, we could’ve nicked a draw at the end. I’m happy with the performance and the work-rate and I know when we get back to the league we’ll be in a better place after this game today.

“We could’ve gone in the bottom four today in the league if all the results had gone (against us) but a few of them went our way, so we’re out of that (relegation zone) at the moment.  By the time we play a league game (at home to Steyning Town Community on Tuesday 8 October), teams are going to be six or seven games ahead of us, so it’s a lot to catch up but lovely, bring it on!

“I’ll give the boys a bit of a rest on Tuesday, train on Thursday and then it’s two games a week for the next seven weeks, I think, so it’s going to be a tough seven weeks but it’s football. We love it, we love playing. The boys love playing, it’s better than training, so let’s see what happens.

“It would’ve been nice to have Chichester at home but (we have) a journey down there. They were in our league year and we went down there and beat them 3-1, I think.

“It will be another tough game but winning games in these realms of these cup rounds, you’re going to have decent opposition, so we’ll give it a go, have a good go at it and then hopefully get a league game on a Tuesday, which would been nice.”

Herne Bay have scooped £8,944 in FA Prize money from their FA Cup run, plus the share of the gate receipts from five ties including today’s second largest home crowd here.

Lovell was asked what he takes out of this season's FA Cup run.

"Take everything out of it. It just shows the character of our boys. It shows the ability of our boys.  It just shows that we’ve got a really good squad of players and we’ve got a good fanbase here that acknowledge good football and are right behind us, so hopefully we can take that ahead.”

Elokobi, meanwhile, praised the travelling Maidstone United support for coming out in their numbers to make it Herne Bay’s largest crowd for 12 years.

“Our supporters are some of the best supporters in this country and we know, we understand days like these. We have to come out to support Maidstone but at the same time credit to Maidstone United supporters, they’ve come out to support Herne Bay as well, win, draw, lose, that’s what we do as a football club, as a community, we come out.

“We saw it last season when we went to low opposition, they’ve come out in their numbers to support Maidstone and also to support Herne Bay because we understand what the financial gains it does to our football clubs at this level, so thank you to Maidstone United supporters.”

Herne Bay: Harry Brooks, Jack Parter, Frankie Smith, Scott Heard, Liam Friend, Skye Salmon, Ethan Smith, Mohamed Kamara (Joel-Michael Odeniran 46), Michael Salako, Artem Kuchkov (Monty Saunders 84), Kane Haysman (Joshua Reid 77).
Subs: Carter Wilson, Daniel Carrington, Jack Hillier, Alfie Hill

Booked: Joel-Michael Odeniran 83

Maidstone United: Alexis Andre Jr, Temi Eweka, Ben Brookes, Jordan Higgs (Aaron Blair 55), George Fowler, Reiss Greenidge, Jon Benton (Matt Bentley 81), Antony Papadopoulos (Tayt Trusty 81, Pierre Fonkeu 90)), Shaquile Coulthirst (Harry Lodovica 72), Sam Corne, Charlie Seaman.
Subs: Lenny Holden, Bivesh Gurung

Goal: Skye Salmon 41 (own goal)

Booked: Reiss Greenidge 80, Matt Bentley 85

Attendance: 1,997
Referee: Mr Steven Hughes
Assistants: Mr Adam Steele & Mr Stephen Hughes
Fourth Official:  Mr Darren Kempster