Maidstone United 13-0 Redhill - I thought we could have had a few more, admits Jack Parkinson

MAIDSTONE UNITED 13-0 REDHILL
The FA Youth Cup Preliminary Round
Wednesday 5^th September 2012
Paul Parkinson reports from The Gallagher Stadium

MAIDSTONE UNITED cruised through the FA Youth Cup Preliminary Round with a thumping 13-0 victory over Redhill at The Gallagher Stadium.



Although the matchday programme listed the visitors as Redbridge, this would be the only faux pas of an incredible night for the Stones’ youngsters, as the statistics show: 8 different players registered goals, Maidstone outshot their opponents 50-4 (40-3 on target), and hit the woodwork an amazing nine times in addition to the 13 goals.

Stones boss, Woking’s former Welling United skipper Jack Parkinson, had a smile almost as wide as the Redhill goal must have seemed, as he praised his charges. “

He said: “I thought in the first half, no disrespect to Redhill, but I thought we could have had a few more. The lads have done really well tonight.

“We watched them earlier this week so we knew what they had and how we could hurt them. We moved the ball really well, but it is a fantastic pitch, but a pleasing thing for me was that we didn’t stop, we kept working and moving the ball from start to finish.”

“All right, we’ve scored thirteen goals, but the biggest thing for me was that we kept a clean sheet.”

“It was a nice night for it. The pitch, the setting here is fantastic, and it encourages the boys to play. If you can’t play on that, you can’t play on anything!”

With Maidstone manager Jay Saunders among the 127 crowd, it wasn’t just first-teamer Kaiyne Woolery who impressed as throughout the match, Maidstone’s youngsters were quicker to the ball all over the pitch, and used the full width to best advantage.

Within the first four minutes, both goalkeepers had been called into action, with Redhill’s Grant Joy parrying Charley Robertson’s shot after the midfielder had broken through two challenges to latch onto Sam Norton’s pass, and Jamie Kelly, who was a virtual spectator for most of the night, saved well at his right hand post from Matthew Cousins.

But from this moment on, it was the Amber and Black show, as Dan Parkinson (youngest brother of the Stones’ manager) fired the first of many efforts over, and Ross Basson forced Joy into another save,

Norton then fired over before Woolery opened the scoring in the 7th minute, with a clipped shot from 25 yards that deceived Joy. The keeper made little effort to save the ball, thinking it was heading wide, only to look on aghast as it scraped inside the left post.

Woolery thought he’d doubled the lead 2 minutes later, latching onto Dan Johnson’s pass after the full-back’s mazy 35-yard run, only to be denied by an offside decision, then the 17 year old Woolery dragged another shot wide.

A poor defensive header on 13 minutes saw Norton burst into the box, but one-on-one with the keeper, the blond forward dragged his shot onto the right hand upright, but another poor Redhill clearance saw the ball fall to Parkinson, who weaved across the front of the box, allowing Robertson to calmly slot a curling right foot effort into the bottom corner.

Woolery had a shot deflected onto the bar, then Norton glanced a header onto the same piece of woodwork, as Maidstone sliced through the Redhill defence at will, then both Robertson and Parkinson had shots from outside the box saved by Joy.

Maidstone’s third came on 25 minutes after Woolery’s dribble into the area beat five defenders within the space of 10 yards, leading to Kenny McCrann’s desperate challenge prompting Mr Waters to point to the spot. Having hit the woodwork twice already, Norton stepped up to drill home a confident penalty.

Woolery, tormenting left back Ted Nash, forced another save from Joy, before Parkinson arrowed a free-kick towards the top left corner, only for the beleaguered keeper to tip over. From the resulting corner, Robertson’s header was blocked on the line by Pedro Dos Santos Silva, but fell conveniently for Norton to tap home his second.

Parkinson fired another 25 yarder over, before Daniel Chapman tried to show some attacking intent, holding off three Maidstone defenders, before being crowded out due to the back of support from his teammates.

The best goal of the half was Maidstone’s fifth, a piledriver from the right corner of the area by right-back Jack Sullivan, following good work by left-back Johnson, who dribbled into the area before pulling the ball back across.

A Basson shot brought another save from Joy, with Norton scooping the rebound onto the bar, before Robertson (twice) and Basson fired shots wide either side of the goal as the first half drew to a close.

The second half started with Maidstone expressing their dominance as Parkinson fired a shot at the Redhill keeper while his teammates were appealing for a blatant handball by Luke Bellars. But Mr Waters waved away the appeals, and Redhill forced the second save of the match from Kelly, who handled Silva’s 45-yard speculative free-kick without any dramas.

Basson had another shot saved by Joy, before Norton completed his hat-trick on 53 minutes, slotting a side-foot shot home past the advancing keeper, courtesy of a weaving run and through ball from Robertson.

Woolery and Parkinson fired shots over before both sides made a pair of changes on 56 minutes, but it was the Maidstone replacements who would have the greater impact.

Martin Remess’s first involvement was to drive into the area, to the dead ball line and pull a cross back into the 6-yard area for Norton to slot home the Stones seventh and his fourth of the night.

Maidstone’s third replacement, Rob Pratt made it eight on 62 minutes with his first touch, as he capitalised on Joy pushing Norton’s header onto the bar and tapping the ball home as it dropped.

Norton saw another header rebound off Joy onto the right post after a Sullivan cross, and the full-back fired a 20 yard drive straight at the keeper. From Joy’s hurried clearance, Robertson fed Norton in again, only for the forward to be denied by Joy’s right foot, and Parkinson curled an effort over from the edge of the D.

Parkinson, to keep his side fresh, made a few tactical changes and explained, “Taylor (McDonagh) who played centre half is a centre forward anyway, and when Sam (Norton) first came to us, he was a centre half. Dan Johnson, the left back was a midfield player, so a lot of the lads since they started playing football have played a number of positions.

“When a game gets quite comfortable like that, it’s nice to get a few lads playing in different positions, it keeps them switched on, a bit more to think about and out of their comfort zone.””

The changes had an immediate impact, as Remess registered the ninth on 69 minutes, as from a Sullivan run and cross, the winger initially tried a cute back heel, only for the effort to hit a defender’s lunge, but fall perfectly for Remess to slam home from close range.

Sullivan had a header saved by Joy, with the keeper also saving well with his legs from Pratt, before Parkinson curled an effort off the left post.

It was Taylor McDonagh who took Maidstone into double figures on 78 minutes, capitalising on Omar Bah’s mistake from a Hennesey clearance, and the converted centre-back stormed into the area, and calmly lobbed the advancing keeper.

Within 35 seconds, Robertson claimed his second, driving across the left side of the Redhill defence, before beating the stationary keeper to make it eleven, but McDonagh’s power was having an effect on the tiring defence.

McDonagh had a shot deflected onto the right hand post, before both Remess and the McDonagh fired wide from in front of goal. And even when McDonagh raced through on goal, his run was stopped by Bah’s lunge, capping a 10 minutes to forget for the Redhill defender, who was booked for his trouble.

Johnson stepped forward to make it a round dozen, as Joy barely reacted to his penalty.

Redhill replacement Rhys Greene brought a full-length save from Jamie Kelly with two minutes left, but there was still time for Johnson to claim his second, and Maidstone’s 13th, from Remess’ quick corner, and Johnson had space to turn and fire under the keeper’s body.

Jack Parkinson finished by saying, “It is nice to get a competitive game under your belt, but we’ve had some tough friendlies. We had AFC Wimbledon down here, and we went down and won 4-1 at Brighton’s training ground, but it’s nice for me to know that the boys are ready for when the League starts.

“This year, it’s 45 minutes each way for the boys, instead of 40 last year, so that extra 10 minutes does make a difference and we’ve got 12 of the boys on the Academy here as well. They’ve been here since 9 o’clock this morning (including me having got back from Hereford at 4am), so they've had a long day and to finish it like that was really pleasing.””

Next up in the Stones’ FA Youth Cup adventure will be a trip to Fisher.

Maidstone United:  Jamie Kelly, Jack Sullivan, Dan Johnson, James Goode (Luke Hennessey 56), Jack Kensington, Taylor McDonagh, Dan Parkinson, Charley Robertson, Kaiyne Woolery (Martin Remess 56), Ross Basson (Rob Pratt 60), Sam Norton.
Subs: Connor Bovingdon, Taylor Gable

Goals:  Kaiyne Woolery 7, Charley Robertson 13, 79 , Sam Norton 25, 32 (pen), 53, 59, Jack Sullivan 40, Rob Pratt 62, Martin Remess 69, Taylor McDonagh 78, Dan Johnson 87 (pen), 90

Redhill:  Grant Joy, Ted Nash, Giles Lloyd (Omar Bah 77), Luke Bellars, Kenny McCrann, Adrian Abbas (George Freeman 56), Pedro Dos Santos Silva, Matthew Cousins, Ross Knight, Daniel Chapman (Rhys Greene 56), Dylan Rigobert.

Booked: Omar Bah 87

Attendance: 127
Referee: Mr Scott Waters
Assistants: Mr Matthew Sell and Mr Marcin Indyk