Alex Flisher can handle a few more months of discomfort for moments like his winner against St Albans.

Flisher continued his comeback from a long-term knee injury by scoring the only goal as Maidstone went fourth in National League South on Saturday.

The Gallagher Stadium erupted as the crowd favourite struck for the first time since handing Stones victory over Bognor in December last year - the goal followed minutes later by the challenge that ended his season.

Winger Flisher does suffer after matches but that’s to be expected.

He said: “It was good to finally get back on the scoresheet and influence a game after a difficult nine months.

“It’s been a long time. I’ve slowly been working my way back into it.

“It is 100% but I’ve spoken to a few other people who’ve had knee injuries and they’ve said for the first six months after every game you’ll have a stiff knee.

“It’ll ease off and after a period of time it will just disappear and you won’t notice anything.

“It’s nothing to worry about, I just have to look after it and ice it after the game.”

Flisher started United’s friendly against Bearsted last week but in competitive matches he’s happier coming off the bench.

He said: “Seventy minutes on Wednesday was probably about right as the knee starts aching after a while.

“If I did 90 minutes too soon it won’t damage it but it might cause some problems.

“It gets a bit stiff when I stop doing stuff so if I started a game I’d have to make sure I kept moving at half-time, otherwise I wouldn’t be able to walk.”