TOUGH BATTLE AS THE REDS COME OUT ON TOP

A tad earlier and a tad closer to home this week as we welcomed Maidstone to fortress Meadow. A 9am meet at least did not demand a tired altercation with the shower door this week but I did still manage to leave the house in flip flops with my astro's neatly tucked away under the wardrobe! No panic, once round the one way system on Leyland road and I was off. For some reason this morning warranted a large cappuccino to banish memories of a 210 mile round journey to Southampton last night, more on the Cappuccino at half time, plenty more.

10am push backs are hardly ideal but, in the grand scheme of things when the sun shines at the meadow, there are few nicer places to play. Needless to say we were a bit sleepy and that is how we would play.

From start to finish we resembled feeding time at the tortoise enclosure at London zoo, plenty of desire and hunger but little done with any great pace. This was one of those days where getting the job done would be the order of the day and that is exactly what happened.

As mentioned it was a slow start with the chaos of Maidstones umpire merry go round, but we got the ball down and made our intentions to play with a number of swift breaks early on. Passes would go a miss and the ball would be clung onto but we did win a corner mid way through the first half and, as always, James Clarke would rifle home the 1st goal 1-0 and possibly deserved.

Maidstone would have their moments and in particular they will rue the 8 corners they had to our 3 and to not capitalise but for the brilliance of James Craigmyle in goal. We were hanging on somewhat but we would make our way to half time 1-0 to the good.

The team talk was lost on me as I ventured round the corner to introduce myself to my large Cappuccino once more, not ideal but all the same I felt far better for it.

A commanding performance from Ders Baillie at the back and a typically metronomic display in CM from Tristan and Fowler saw us spread the play far better and, once we got the ball forward, we would create far more but the ball and the goal would remain in tact.

Once again it took our stampeding right half to settle the score as Hendo fed it right via Prem and the ball ran loose for Clarke to rifle the ball home with an open play drag flick. 2-0 and surly the 10 men of Maidstone wouldn't get back in. They wouldn't and after a succession of 3 on 1's that we couldn't make count we the ball fell to the good Dr Slack who smashed the ball in the bottom corner to wrap it up with a 3-0 home win.

Successive home clean sheets, 5 wins from 5 at home before Christmas and an improvement in the away form after the break should see us mount a decent challenge. Maidstone are always a potential banana skin and it's fair to say we dodged this one with relative ease without really hitting 2nd gear.

Canterbury next week which is always tough away from home. Good work boys, great home run!