At home with The Stathams
MAIDSTONE UNITED 1 BILLERICAY TOWN 1
Match Report by CLARK GABLE’S HILL
During the wilderness years in the Kent County League, Maidstone United had a fairly prolific striker who had a sideline as a male model. He wasn’t prone to self-doubt (once lecturing his team mates ‘Hey! Can we have some fucking quality?!”) and he exuded the same levels of confidence in Maidstone’s night clubs as he did in the opposition’s penalty box. On one occasion, having witnessed a woman crying in one such flesh pit, he allegedly approached her and said: “did you start crying because I walked in?”
His Maidstone career ended when accidentally started a riot during a cup tie. He missed the semi-grand rebirth in 2001 and a little over a decade later was pictured in a charity match, looking about 10 stone heavier. By then his chances of pulling on a Saturday night were no better than anyone else’s: wait for the 3am dog run on Gabriels Hill and hope for the best.
Barely 14 years ago, Paul Konchesky’s goal in the FA Cup final meant West Ham were within seconds of winning their first trophy since 1980, only for the hopes to be shattered by a spawny, shinned equaliser from a Phil Collins-loving midfielder.
In 2006 he was seconds from making history. Yesterday he was visibly thrilled with the point his side earned at Maidstone. This, I suppose, is flattering. 14 years ago he wouldn’t even have flashed his eyelashes at us, but such is the ever-shifting dynamic of the game. (Too subtle?)
Billericay’s fans used to have a reputation for being a bit of a laugh. They’d sing for 90 minutes, get slaughtered, stick a few hundred quid behind the bar and generally do no one any harm. Then the dark, or specifically the orange, times came and they were still a bit of a laugh but for entirely different reasons.
Now, in a Stygian (look it up) era where laughter is hard to come by, we’re in the third age of Billericay and it seems they were doing their bit to help struggling local businesses on Saturday.
“There were maybe a dozen of them, all of them looking like Jason Statham’s distant cousins, sat in one section of the main stand,” our mole at the ground reports. “Their concession to social distancing was to sit in a cluster, in some case one seat apart, but where the gap between them was still less than a meter, let alone two. One went out to find an off licence and came back with a plastic bag full of cans, which they were passing around. Stella and Strongbow, plus a few Costa Cups. They weren’t aggressive or unpleasant and when they were asked to stop drinking they complied, although one did down his can.”
Maybe they were all part of the same household. Perhaps a mini-series beckons? As far as we know no one rang Priti Patel’s Supergrass Hotline, although you do have to ask the question: If they were there in a professional capacity why were they drinking on the job?
Just how professional Billericay are in the post-Tamplin era is open to debate. The match itself was a bad trip, with every ex-Maidstone player a reminder of past mistakes. In the case of J’ai Raison the mistake was perhaps letting him go to Dover, who stayed up at our expense. Wilson and Robinson were throwbacks to the Wheeler era, whose horrors really don’t need recalling now, while DCH and Knight were evidence that even JS2’s eye for a player occasionally had cataracts.
This was arguably the biggest disappointment of the season so far, because unlike Dartford and even Wimborne, they were exceptionally poor opposition. Hak said he thought they had an enviable squad in his post-match interview, but if that’s the case they were far less than the sum of their parts.
Last season, O’Hara’s insistence on playing out from the back saw them pinned in their own half for much of the 90 minutes and they were lucky to only lose 2–1. It looked like a classic case of a former top-flight player struggling to grasp the limitations of sixth-tier footballers and they didn’t seem to have learned much in the mean time. They still nonced around with it at the back and only then launched it long, a plan that offered maximum risk for minimum reward.
I lost count of the number of times botched clearances and mishit passes from the edge of the area found amber shirts, which only added to the frustration at the end.
It should have been another rout. DCH just about saved an effort from Olutade in the fifth minute, but within sixty seconds he’d spooned a shot from Seaman straight into the same player’s path for a tap in.
In fairness he then made a decent, one-handed save a few moments later, but he still looked the same accident-waiting-to-happen he’d been when JS2 brought him in to replace Ethan Ross, allegedly without even looking at the latter. Wilson struggled to cope with Seaman, while Felix was similarly struggling to deal with Amaluzor.
As the chances dried up, so Ricay’s hopes of shithousing the point that was the summit of their ambitions increased. And just after the hour they were gifted a penalty so soft it might have been a petition to avoid the draft because of bone spurs. Even then they nearly fucked it up when Robinson’s effort dribbled to Constable’s left, but having dived the right way (albeit after jumping far enough off his line to justify a retake) he still didn’t save it.
In response, we started created chances again. This was pleasing. Unfortunately we cunted up every single one of them. This was less pleasing. Seeeemuuuurn is lethal from 30 yards but was less so from 3. A few seconds later Amo missed by inches. George had a header that didn’t miss by much, as did Joe. The ball pinged around the six-yard box but somehow stayed out and approaching stoppage time Ricay almost won it by accident, when Chesmain somehow scrambled a loose ball clear after a rebound, with visiting attackers almost queuing up not to shoot.
That really would have been a heist, as victory wasn’t in the Ricay masterplan. In the closing stages, when they weren’t arguing with each other, some of their senior players could be heard ordering their forwards to: “Take it in the corner.” This might have made sense if the same senior players hadn’t spent stoppage time fannying around on the edge of their own area, repeatedly giving us possession. They got away with it.
For the first time this season the absence of fans seemed to have a serious effect on the atmosphere and maybe the outcome. It’s difficult to quantify; it didn’t do us any harm in our first three home games and as we speculated on Tuesday it probably helped at Gravesend. But yesterday the ground should have baying for a late winner and instead it all seemed a bit flat.
For everyone except Billericay of course. Konchesky said it was a “fantastic” performance and was beaming like a divorced 55-year-old man on Gabriel’s Hill, after copping off with an 01634 as she staggered back to the taxi rank, still able to taste the kebab meat on her tonsils.
- We’re reliably informed that there were an astonishing 45 “stewards” at Stonebridge Road on Tuesday night, a number so absurd it might have come from a comical, totalitarian regime. If you think that’s an exaggeration this was apparently found in the window of their ticket office before yesterday’s game with Tonbridge. Never change Gravesend & Northfleet. Please never change.
