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Maidstone United chief executive Bill Williams has one concern going into Hungerford game

06:00, 07 January 2021

Bill Williams is intrigued to see how Maidstone perform in their first league game for more than a month.

The Stones are due at Hungerford in National South this Saturday, having been out of action since a 2-2 draw at Dorking on December 1.

Maidstone United chief executive Bill Williams Picture: Steve Terrell
Maidstone United chief executive Bill Williams Picture: Steve Terrell

They’ve played just one FA Trophy tie since then - a 2-0 second-round win over Poole - with Covid hitting their fixture list.

They returned to training on Monday, following a second spell in isolation, to begin preparing for Hungerford

Despite their long spell out, Hakan Hayrettin’s side are only just outside the play-offs in eighth place.

Stones chief executive Williams will be keeping a close eye on the players this weekend.

“These are unprecedented times,” he said. “Everyone uses that word but it’s true.

“What’s always worrying, if you can say worrying, is when you have a break from your routine.

“When you play this wonderful game, and you’re going after results, you want to keep a consistency of games.

“Unfortunately, we’ve had that taken away from us on two occasions where we’ve had 10-day breaks in isolation.

“That’s the only thing I would have concerns about, how we’re going to come out of that.

"We’re training fine, there’s no problem there, but it’s like everything, you just don’t know how the games are going to go.”

Williams hopes a return to action will give Maidstone fans a lift after the country went back into lockdown.

Matches will take place behind closed doors for the foreseeable future but live streams keep people entertained, with elite football allowed to continue under government rules.

“I’m one of the privileged ones who can watch the team in the flesh, and I feel sorry for everyone who can’t,” said Williams.

“But by playing it’s keeping an interest in the community and I know watching my teams on the telly, when I was isolating, it helped me.

“I’m hoping our fans are able to read about the club, or tweet about the club, whatever it is they do, and watch the streams.

“I hope, by doing that, it keeps people in good spirits and means we are doing something good in the area.”

Read more: The latest sports news in Kent

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