Maidstone United 8 Enfield Town 0

Report by Andrew Warshaw

Embarrassing, humiliating, incomprehensible. What a difference three days make.

As a totally shellshocked Gavin Macpherson put it after the game, it’s hard to find the words to adequately sum up Enfield Town’s record ever defeat which brought their four-game unbeaten run to a shuddering halt.

In complete contrast to last Saturday’s 5-0 thrashing of Farnborough , when it looked for all the world like we had put a marker down to out relegation rivals, the massacre at Maidstone brought us crashing spectacularly down to earth, in the process wrecking our goal difference.

If there is any shred of consolation, it is that this was only one game, hopefully a freak one-off result, that most other results on the night went in our favour and that Saturday presents a quick opportunity to put things right when we entertain Bath City.

Yet that cannot deflect from the most abject of performances and the need for some frank and honest soul-searching.

Town may have been forced into two defensive changes with Adam Thompson and Mickey Parcell missing but their replacements, Xav Benjamin and Ruaridh Donaldson, have had little difficulty in the past stepping in to their respective roles.

 This time, however, both were horribly exposed by Maidstone’s pace and craft in a back three that at times seemed as if they had never played on the same pitch together. But they weren’t the only culprits. Defensive cover was too often sorely lacking whilst up front Town created next to nothing, Lemar Reynolds a peripheral figure against his old club.

Town made two other changes to the starting line-up for purposes of rotation with T’Sharne Gallimore and Billy Leonard also coming in but the warning signs were evident right from the start when Riley Court’s effort clipped the outside of the post. Three minutes later, Donaldson mistimed his jump and Court drilled his shot past Joe Wright for the opener.

As Town tried to respond, Nino Adom-Malaki’s shot with his weaker foot was collected at the second attempt by the home keeper but by halftime it was game over as the mid-table full-time hosts, who went into the game bottom of the form table, were out of reach and made to look like Brazil.

On 18 minutes, Benjamin’s nudge on the irrepressible Jephte Tanga led to a spotkick which former Towner Mo Faal duly converted.  

Town almost halved the deficit when Henry Hawkins’ header from a corner was cleared off the line but within a flash, Maidstone charged up the other end and Tanga fired home off the post

Town were paying for poor decision making at crucial moments – almost Farnborough in reverse – and on the stroke of halftime we were carved open again when Jamie Yila linked up with Court who finished with aplomb.

H-T 0-4

On came Bailey Brown for the out-of-sorts Yacou Traore — man of the match last Saturday – but within 90 seconds the floodgates opened even wider as Donaldson was beaten by the quick feet of Yila whose pass to Tanga was stroked home.

Court completed his hat-trick in the absence of any semblance of defensive cover and six became seven through substitute Deon Moore.

All that was left was for Maidstone to round off Town’s night of misery when another substitute Hamzad Kargbo netted from close range. And for Joe Wright to pull off a worldie to prevent an even greater humiliation.

After one of those “I was there” nights but for all the wrong reasons, Gavin bravely fronted up though the hurt and pain was there for all to see in his glazed eyes.

“I feel quite emotional,” said Gavin who understandably took the ruthlessness of defeat badly and apologised to the travelling Town faithful. “I’m shellshocked and beyond words. Mistake after mistake after mistake and completely unacceptable. I can’t defend myself, my team, my players or anything that happened on that football pitch tonight. I have never in my career been involved in anything as bad as that.

“The buck stops with me. I can’t just walk away from it as one of those nights and we will analyse it in full and try to put things right. We’ve made big strides I won’t let one result define us.”

Town

 Wright; Benjamin, Donaldson, Hawkins; Traore (Brown 45), Leonard, Youngs (Knight 66), Gallimore (Bullas 59), Adom-Malaki; Andrews (Bartlett-Antwi 53), Reynolds.