Stones given clearance to continue at Homelands Stadium

Tuesday 06th July 2010

MAIDSTONE UNITED manager Peter Nott has confirmed the club will still be allowed to play at Homelands Stadium when the Ryman Premier League campaign kick-off’s in August, writes Stephen McCartney.

The owner of the ground, Tony Betteridge, has recently taken Don Crosbie, the co-owner of Ashford Town Football Club, to the High Court, and the club are presently suspended by The Football Association for unpaid football debts.

Nott has discussed this with his chairman, Mr Paul Bowden-Brown, and he told www.kentishfootball.co.uk this lunchtime that the Stones can play on.

“He tells me our situation doesn’t affect what’s happened at Ashford,” he said.

“Our agreement is with Tony Betteridge, the owner of the ground, and it’s all been finalised with the (Ryman) League and he’s given assurances we’ll be playing there as normal.

“We sincerely hope the situation at Ashford gets sorted out so we can have a good relationship with Ashford Town there.

“We’re concerned that we haven’t been able to play some home pre-season friendlies, which means we’ve not had the chance to earn any revenue there and it’ll be nice to get onto the pitch before the season starts.”

The Stones report back to pre-season training this evening, and Nott is relishing his first full season in charge of the club.

“There will be about 50 all training tonight but we’ll split those up between reserves and first team,” he said.

“We’ll take 30 with us (in the first team) and the majority of the squad that we’ve now signed and we’ll have a look at half-a-dozen trialists that we’re looking at and we’ve asked the reserves to look at the trialists as well.

“We’ll look at physical stuff but we’ll get the balls out for a little bit, but the main thing is we’ll work hard on Tuesday and Thursday and on Saturday we’ve got an internal game between the club, where we’ll look at some of the trialists in an eleven-a-side match situation.”

Nott, meanwhile, believes popular wing-back, Nathan Paul, has played his last game for the club - although he is desperate that the former Beckenham Town player stays.

“Nathan knows we want to keep him but he also knows we can’t offer him the money he was on last year,” said Nott.

“He wanted to find out whether he can get similar money at Conference (South) level and we gave him our blessing. He’s been very loyal to the club and he knows we want him back but he wants that money to supplement his income and play at a higher level off football.

“We’ve left it open to him. He’s been given the details of pre-season and we’ll be speaking to him in the next couple of weeks.

“There is a place at the club but it comes at a price unfortunately.”

When asked whether he thinks Paul will pull on the amber shirt when the kick-off their Ryman Premier League campaign on 21 August, Nott replied: “I’d be surprised if he does but that’s by no means to say we don’t want him. We’d love to see him in an amber shirt, the supporters adore him and he’s been very loyal.

“But we’ve had to reduce the budget but the main focus is to get a decent team but within a budget we can afford so we’re not having the same problems as last year.

“We’ve got a lot of players this season who are here for the right reasons and they want to play for Maidstone, within the budget we’ve been set.”

Visit Maidstone United’s website: www.maidstoneunited.co.uk