Broke to Bank (Journeyman)

Welcome back and we have been busy in the preparations for our first ever Premier League season. But just after I posted the last update I got the news that we were moving stadium because our current stadium, The Windmill Ground, did not meet the requirements so we are now sharing Barry Town's stadium, Jenner Park. Our reputation has also grew by quite a lot after winning the title.




Transfers
We have brought in quite a lot of players as I noticed that we had quite a poor squad for the division above. The first person through the door was young left back Oliver Edwards who would provide backup to Owen, then I brought in Dylan Salmon who will play in our under 19s this one is more for the future and as we are now in a youth league I should be able to develop more younger players. I did notice as good as Wood was last season he didn't have enough going forward so to rotate with him I have brought in Daniel Alfei who has played in the Championship for Swansea and Portsmouth! And as Edwards retired we needed some defensive midfielders so I brought in Richard Davies on loan from Haverfordwest and Sean Rowlands from Aberdare. One of the weaker players in our XI last season was Wharton so I thought to bring in a new box to box midfielder and thats when I found Paulo Mendes who is a experienced Portuguese midfielder who started his career in Portugal but then came to England and played in the National North and most recently he played for Aberystwyth under Shane Long. If you read through my previous updates you can see that I complained about our defence a lot so iv'e brought in two new centre half's, Andrew Thomas and Daniel Price, Thomas has played fro Newtown for all of his career but was released this season and would be one of our starting centre backs but got injured in pre-season for 6 to 7 weeks. The other centre half is Daniel Price who also came through the Newtown academy but left on a free to Bala Town and won the JD Cymru North.]

Oliver Edwards // DL // Free Transfer

Dylan Salmon

Daniel Alfei // DR // Free Transfer

Richard Davies // DM // Loan from Haverfordwest

Sean Rowlands // DM // Free Transfer from Aberdare

Paulo Mendes // MC // Free Transfer

Andrew Thomas // DC // Free Transfer

Daniel Price // DC // Free Transfer


Friendlies


Results wise this was a terrible pre-season but in financial terms it was great as we played football league sides like Bristol Rovers, Newport County, Luton Town, Charlton as well as Leicester's U23s and Wycombe. Just from the Money League alone we made 34k from gate receipts and in total we received 62k in gate receipts and if you take away the expenses of these friendlies and also add on match day income we made 15k which considering our total balance before this was around 2k and it now sits at 20k thats great and in my opinion the games we should have won we did

Its no exaggeration that we have played terrible this season as we sit bottom of the league, the board are actually happy with me so far this season but I'm not enjoying it now and at the end of the day its a game so if i'm not enjoying it I think it was the good time to leave so I applied to jobs and someone has payed £1.4k to get me in! On a personal level we have completed our Continental B Licence and are now studying for our Continental A Licence.





As you could see we were getting battered every week

That's right the club that payed £1.4k for me was Varanarma National side Maidstone United. Maidstone has been struggling in Englands 5th tier. I had interviews with: League One side Morcambe who ended up getting John Terry! And Wycombe who are also in our league but Maidstone ended up giving me the job!

They have offered me a £1.1k wage (my previous wage was £150!) and i will join immediately





Maidstone United are a Proffesional club that were founded in 1992 after being forced out the football league due to bankruptcy, before their bankruptcy Maidstone had won the Varanarma National League twice. And obviously they have won a fair lot of lower league titles after their bankruptcy.

They play their games at the Gallagher Stadium which is a 4,200 (720 seated) stadium which was built only in 2012! They have Basic Youth Facilities and Basic Training Facilities






We have a very small squad compared to Llantwit Major. The game says our key player is midfielder Matthew Smith who came through the Arsenal academy where he made his debut in the Carabao Cup. But in terms of average rating Fulham academy graduate Zico Asare who's a Ghanaian centre-half who has already played 91 games for us in 3 season after he joined from Wigan.

Matthew Smith

Zico Asare





As you can see there's a lot of red but after beating Paulton Rovers in the FA Trophy we are still in that competition but unfortunately we are out the FA Cup after losing to Varanarma South side Kingstonian after a replay.

And just like that we have finished our first season in Maidstone but there is one major concern which is when I'm writing this my contract ends in a month but because of the poor financial position they can't offer me a contract! But we are now affiliated with West Brom!





We have made two transfers after our affiliation with West Brom. We brought in striker Alan Smith who ended up being our star striker and we brought in a backup keeper in Kyle Gutteridge!

Alan Smith // ST // Loan from West Brom

Kyle Gutteridge // GK // Loan from West Brom





I have to be honest normally I do notes on the games but I forgot but as you can see we had large amounts of draws and wins but our worse game was us losing to Varanarma North team Basford who scored the 2 goals with their only 2 shots on target...




We escaped relegation by the skin of our teeth, it was tight but I consider that a big success!




My player of the year

Alan Smith - he came in on loan with interest from other clubs and after starting 15 games he got 10 goals, with 3 of them being 90th minute winners. Truly amazing



Maidstone United End of Season Awards

Its been a great pre-season with us starting it being predicted to finish 18th but now at the end of the pre-season predicted to finish one place outside the playoffs!



There's been so many transfers i'll just do a little intro for each player.

Ins

Christian Barrow // DL // Free Transfer from Arsenal
After noticing that our fullbacks were the worst players in the team last season I know I had to find some new ones and after I saw Barrow on the list of released players at the end of the season I had to snap him up

Ryan Miller // MC // Free Transfer from Tottenham
The midfielders from last season were on rather high wages without them being too good so I had a clear out and brought some players in with their wages, one of them being FA Youth Cup winner Ryan Miller!

Callum Holsgrove // MC // Free Transfer from Manchester United
Decently low wages and a decent option

Pat Baxter // DR // Free Transfer from Arsenal
As I said we needed new full backs and Arsenal had two being released!

Juan Miguel // GK // Free Transfer
Good young backup keeper, he came through the Man City academy and played for our rivals Ebbsfleet United last season

Omar Sowunmi // DC // Free Transfer
I was originally looking for a backup DC but then I found the 6'7 centre back Sowunmi who is a absolute beast!

Jeremy Myers // AMR // Free Transfer from Wigan
Wanted to get in a good AMR for if we play our 4-3-2-1 and Myers looks like a great coup

Daniel Hughes // ST // Free Transfer
He was originally meant to come in with the players released from prem clubs but wage demands were too high so was patient and got him for less, great signing imo!

Rhys Evans // DR // Free Transfer
The fans did not like this one but he brings experience and good backup on the right flank

Paul Wallace // MC/AMC // Loan from West Brom
I wasn't looking to get in another midfielder but when I looked who we can get from our affiliate I saw Wallace who is a great player for this division!

Alan Smith // ST // Loan from West Brom
He has returned! But this time not as the first choice ST with Hughes taking his place, he will play rotation or on the left flank.


Outs

Isaac Olaofe // AMR // £17K to Stockport County
Too high wages and Myers is way better

Released players

I haven't been able to play this as much but its been decent so far and we're still aiming for playoffs! I am enjoying Maidstone with my day trips to London, it'll be a shame when we need to move back out of England. We also bagged our Continental A Licence






We've had some bad patches but overall its been decent with our best match being 6-0 battering of Halifax Town but lets begin at the start. We didn't start the season that well against Boston Utd where it was quite a even game but in our defence Boston where predicted to finish 3rd. We then went on to face a decent Barnet side who we cleared the floor with, after playing the team predicted to finish 3rd two games ago we went to Crawley who were predicted to finish 2nd so there was no break for us! it ended up being a even game but unlike vs Boston we managed to grab a draw away from home. We finished the month unbeaten against below-par teams, even though two of them being poor draws vs Chorley and Sutton United. We got a surprise when we travelled to Dover where we got dominated but we bounced back with a draw against a decent Wycombe side then a 3-0 win against rivals Ebbsfleetand the previously mentioned 6-0. October was a busy month with us playing 8 matches, a routine month for us tbh.

In the FA Cup we cut our run a bit short but we started our run vs Varanarma South team Welling Utd who made us go to a replay but we squeezed by and then we got at the time high flyers Wycombe who we beat but then we got drawn against Shrewsbury who sat 2nd in League Two which was a challenge but I think we held our own and did ourselves proud.





We sit 4 points in the playoffs in the final spot and I think we're starting to cement our place in the playoffs