TALKING POINTS

Alan Wills – @alanjwills

Alan discusses the key points from the draw

HEAD TO HEAD

Much has been said and written about Maidstone United being one of our bogey teams.

I’ve heard facts like:

We had lost six matches in a row at the Gallagher Stadium
We had only won two matches against Maidstone, ever, in about 18 attempts

Personally, this was my fifth Maidstone away trip, and I had only seen defeats. The first being a 1-4 defeat in 1990 when they ground shared at Dartford.

Coming away with a point, and the nature of the last minute penalty, finished the game on a high, and I came away from Maidstone happy for the first time.

MAIDSTONE

Much of the talk when we arrived in Maidstone was about the supposed protest happening near the Town Hall.

Fortunately, the ground is left from the station, and not far right, so we went that way.

Despite it being mentioned by the locals a lot during our visit, and the large Police presence, it seemed to be a damp squib and fortunately there didn’t seem to be any trouble.

The pubs in Maidstone as usual were a bit disappointing. The Society Rooms (a large soulless Wetherspoons in a 1960s drab block building), and The Royal Albion (the oldest pub in Maidstone, where we were the only patrons), so we made our way to the one near the stadium.

The Flower Pot was better, but we stood outside with our pints only to enjoy the sights and sounds of busy dual carriageway, which we later had to navigate across to get to the stadium.

GALLAGHER STADIUM

It was a great turnout from the Yellow Army as usual, despite the long distance to travel, and some of the players remarked afterwards that we were very loud.

We were housed in the corner of one end of the ground, rather than the raised terracing opposite where we were on my first two visits to the Gallagher Stadium, and the view was not ideal.

There was a small covered terrace just to the side of the goal, where a lot of people were stood.

It was remarked that it was particularly bad for watching if you were disabled, as a supporter in a wheelchair had the top of the fence right in their eyeline.

There was a mobile bar which served lager and cider on tap, but again no bitter, which seemed to be a recurring theme for hostelries in this part of Kent.

OFFICIATING

The referee set the tone by not booking the Maidstone man for a nasty sliding tackle on Sonny Blu Lo-Everton early on. With Maidstone being quite physical, this meant that many fouls were subsequently left unpunished. There were a few bookings later, and perhaps a few possible penalty decisions waved away. However, he had no choice but to give the penalty for the foul on Jordan Young in injury time.

MAIDSTONE GOAL

The goal was poor from a Torquay point of view. The United defence seemed to have pushed up with only Jordan Thomas as the last man (on our left for some reason). Once it became two against one, Jordan had no chance and it was an easy finish for the Maidstone man in the middle from the cross.

STRIKING OPTIONS

The lone striker was again Cody Cooke who has had a great end of pre-season and start to the real season last week, despite his bruised cheekbone.

However, he didn’t get any joy from the physicality of Maidstone’s centre backs, and he was eventually substituted in the second half, and Louis Dennis replaced as the target man.

When Louis sustained a thigh injury, Ed Palmer was preferred as a substitute centre forward to Jadyn Crosbie, which may indicate that the young striker could be going out on loan soon.

Jadyn Crosbie has been an unused sub in both of the opening matches.

With Louis Dennis and Sonny Fish injured, you do wonder whether Crosbie will now get his chance in the team if he doesn’t go elsewhere to gain valuable experience.

THE LATE PENALTY

In our best chance of the game, Louis Dennis had narrowly rolled a shot wide of the left hand post in the second half, before he went off.

We thought our chance had gone, but United were ramping up the pressure following the introduction of substitutes Matt Jay, Nashy Sundire, Ed Palmer and Dan Hayfield.

In the six minutes of injury time, Torquay were just throwing long balls into the mixer, and Ed Palmer was causing havoc in the box.

Jordan Young was scythed down, and despatched the penalty himself to the delight of the travelling Yellow Army.

That’s two goals in the first two games for Jordan!

THE START

We are only two games in, but we are already ahead of where we were this time last season.

The first home match against Enfield was won 3-1, compared to 2-1 last season, and certainly in the first half we looked much more fluid from an attacking point of view.

The first away match against Maidstone was drawn 1-1, compared to a 0-1 defeat away at Farnborough last season. It also improved on our Maidstone away result last year, which was 0-1.

Overall, Paul Wotton has to be happy with four points out of six going into a home-away-home combination against the three promoted sides from the level below, Totton, Horsham, and Dover.

A thigh injury to Louis Dennis might keep him out for at least some of those games, but having Matt Jay (who looked lively as a sub yesterday) to come in and take his opportunity provides only optimism.