Maidstone United 0-2 Heybridge Swifts - The players let everyone down, slams Hume

A scrappy first-half, that turned increasingly fractious as Mr Woodward‘s decisions started frustrating both sides, ended with scores level. Needless to say though, both sides had their chances to break the deadlock.

Maidstone would live to regret an 8th minute miss by Lloyd Blackman, who lobbed wide when clear one-on-one with Heybridge goalkeeper Ollie Morris-Sanders, which could have changed the course of the game and given the hosts a much needed boost.

Keelan Mooney, from just inside the box on, and Kevin Watson, with a long range drive after 33 minutes also had good chances to take the lead.

In reply, Swifts had probably the best chance of the half on 27 minutes, when Ian Cox‘s clearance header fell to Reece Morgan, whose instant volley crashed against the bar with Andy Walker beaten.

The Stones‘ keeper had to be at his best to turn over a Robbie King 30-yard shot then, from the resulting corner, dived low to his right to turn Neil Cousins‘ volley from the edge of the area.

However, Heybridge took the lead on 61 minutes, when Cousins capitalised on a large gap in the Maidstone defence, left when Cox had broken up a Swifts attack and broken forward, to walk through unchallenged and beat Walker from 16 yards.

Now desperate to get back into the game, Maidstone relied increasingly on the long ball. Mooney saw a shot blocked after an Aaron Lacy long throw, before Mr Woodward waved away vehement appeals for a penalty from players and crowd alike, despite his assistant waving for a handball in the area.

With the home side committing players forward, Swifts always looked threatening on the counter-attack, and increased their lead on 82 minutes when James Robinson steered the ball home from close range, despite the best efforts of Lacy and Walker to deny his first shot.

Maidstone United joint-manager, Lloyd Hume, speaking to BBC Radio Kent afterwards, refused to blame the news that the club has been put up for sale, for this defeat.

“It would be easy to blame the off-field problems for the poor performance, but I‘m not going to do that,” he said.

“I said to the players afterwards that we would have to take responsibility for our performance. I think they let each other down today, they let us down and they let the chairman and the fans down and I‘ve made it clear in there.

“There‘s a lot of people who could have done a lot better. I praise the players when they do well and today they deserve all the criticism.”

Maidstone United: Andy Walker, Nathan Paul, Ashley Ulph, Kevin Watson, Ian Cox, Roland Edge, Aaron Lacy, Jay Saunders, Keelan Mooney (Elliot Bradbrook 72), Lloyd Blackman, James Peacock (Ant Bodle 77).
Subs: James Bodle, James Pinnock, Steve Northwood.

Booked: Ashley Ulph 41

Heybridge Swifts: Ollie Morris-Sanders, Billy Hawes, Chris Bourne, Robbie King, Ian Wiles, Luke Fisher, Reece Morgan, Adam Gillespie, Neil Cousins, Gary Hill (Craig Hudgell 53), James Robinson.
Subs: Ryan Hull, Ben Codling, Adam Passfield, Jamie Bowyer.

Goals: Neil Cousins 61, James Robinson 82

Booked: Billy Hawes 32, Gary Hill 39

Attendance: 256
Referee: Mr Irvine Woodward (Seaford, East Sussex)
Assistants: Mr Dominic Lyons (Lewes, East Sussex) & Mr Mark Tasker (Lewes, East Sussex)