Maidstone United 0-3 Folkestone Invicta - We look back to our best, says Invicta boss Neil Cugley

Whereas opposite number, Jay Saunders, having seen his side drop to fifth in the division on the back of a four game winless streak, admitted: “You can’t give, no matter what level of football you are playing at, teams a two goal head start.  Both of the first two goals could have been avoided.

“Folkestone are a decent side, but if you give people two goals, it is going to lift them.  After that, they started popping the ball about and we never recovered. 

“If Shaun (Welford) had taken his chance we could have been one up, but they took their chances and fair play to them.  They are a well organised side, they’ve been together a long time.  The core of the side have been together a few years, know each other and work hard for each other.”

Saunders added: “I don’t think it was just tonight.  I think we’ve not been clicking for a while.  Ramsgate first half and Saturday first half weren’t too bad, but I can’t remember the last time we put in a performance over 90 minutes.   Maybe Dulwich away or Merstham, but since them we’ve not been quite right.

“For some reason we either go on a winning run, or we lose a few, but overall, I can’t have people out there who don’t give 100% even if they are having a bad game, and some people haven’t been doing that lately.

“It’s what disappoints me, and that’s why I left Ellis out tonight.  But I could go round at half-time tonight and make five or six changes in all fairness, but it annoys me that we should have been safely in the play-offs and we’ve thrown games away by giving away sloppy goals.”

The early chance that Saunders was referring to could have had a real bearing on the match. 

Shaun Welford beat the Folkestone offside trap, for pretty much the only time all night, clipped the ball past keeper Jack Delo on the edge of the area, but looked on in horror as the ball took a nasty bobble and his effort towards the empty net screwed wide of the left hand post.

Folkestone made sure they punished the let-off with their first attack after 12 minutes as Darren Marsden’s pinpoint through ball beat the Maidstone defence, released Stuart King, and the forward calmly slotted the ball past John Whitehouse as the home keeper advanced towards the edge of his area.

Whitehouse did well to save a King shot low to his left ten minutes later, but the visitors’ doubled their lead on 24 through the most unlikely of sources. 

From Josh Burchell’s corner, a poor flick at the near post fell to former Gillingham and Maidstone full-back, Roland Edge, and Edge hit the sweetest of left foot volleys through the crowd past an unsighted Whitehouse.

Near the end of the half, Maidstone had two half chances to get back in the game, but Delo saved comfortably from both Sam’s – Hasler and Bewick.

Then early in the second, poor communication between Welford and Graeme Andrews led to a collision and Andrews’ header flying wide.

Despite dominating the corner count 14 to 5, Maidstone were unable to create a consistent attacking threat due to the well marshalled Folkestone defence and their effective offside trap that caught the hosts fourteen times on the night. 

And it was little surprise that Folkestone increased their lead on 65, but Liam Dickson’s lung-bursting 50-yard run and finish surprised even Cugley.

He summed it up perfectly, saying “Liam’s a cracking full-back, just gets on with his game, and a diamond person to have in your squad, and to get a goal like that was superb.  You saw what it meant to everybody because he works so hard at his game.  It was unbelievable, running from the halfway line, beating two blokes and tucked it under the keeper, it was sensational.”

Both keepers were tested at the end of the game, with Delo parrying smartly from Tom Mills’ snapshot after Whitehouse had been stretched to turn Burchell’s drive over his bar. 

And with the last chance of the game, Frankie Chappell ensured Folkestone would take away a clean sheet by clearing Bewick’s effort off the line.

As a manager running one of the smallest squads in the division, Cugley explained how he is managing his players.  He said “Hopefully Stuart (King) can play on Saturday again.  He had to come off with a tight hamstring, so only half a game out of him, but once again he’s shown what a great finisher he is with his goal.  If we can get him rested, hopefully he’ll be up for the rest of the games.

“We’ve got a situation here where Auso (Simon Austin) has come back to help me out, Edgey (Roland Edge) is not available every game, so we’ve just got to get on with it.  We run on a small squad and do the best we can with it.

“Sometimes I put the pressure on myself and when you lose games like Dulwich, it’s three on the trot at home now, you do feel the pressure, but people don’t realise how far we’ve come and what we’re trying to achieve.

“If we can have a good season this year, no doubt we’ll have a good one next year as these players have been together three or four years, and with Darren Marsden and Kingy coming in, we could have a really good side.

“I wanted to show how much this means to me, as we’ve let our standards drop from what we had achieved in December.  But if we play like we did tonight, we could have a very enjoyable last few weeks of the season.”

For Saunders though, maybe there is a feeling of his side exceeding their expectations this year. 

He insisted: “At the beginning of the season there was no pressure on me to make the play-offs.  I thought this squad was good enough, but injuries have hit us at key times which has unsettled us.

“That happens in football and it is a squad game, you’ve got to deal with that.  One or two things have not been right, but there are good players in there.  I’ve always been around sides that haven’t given away sloppy goals from free kicks and corners, and it drives me mad when people aren’t doing their jobs.

“I don’t know if we drop out of the play-offs after tonight, but we’ve got to keep going.  We’ve six or seven games to go and we’ve got to go out there and put it right.  If we don’t make the playoffs, then we don’t.

“I’ll be absolutely gutted, but I want the players to give 100%.  Not just for me, but themselves, the supporters and everyone involved in the club.”

Maidstone United:  John Whitehouse, Tommy Osborne, Tom Mills, Sam Groombridge, Graeme Andrews, Danny Lye (Ben Davisson 66), Sam Hasler (Ellis Green 57), Sam Bewick, Shaun Welford, Baff Addae (Alex Waugh 46), Karl Murray.
Subs: Jay Saunders, Gavin Greenfield

Booked: Shaun Welford 28, Sam Groombridge 33

Folkestone Invicta:  Jack Delo, Roland Edge (Damian Abel 82), Josh Burchell, Liam Friend, Frankie Chappell, Liam Dickson, Darren Smith (Antonio Gonnella 88), Darren Marsden, James Everitt, Stuart King (Simon Austin 46), Micheal Everitt.
Subs: Cade Mortimer, Roddy Hayward

Goals: Stuart King 12, Roland Edge 24, Liam Dickson 65

Attendance: 309
Referee: Mr Darren Blunden (Dartford)
Assistants: Mr Stephen Brown (Ashford) and Mr Michael Marsh (Herne Bay)