Terry Casey has dismissed talk of consolidation and says Maidstone are the biggest club in National League South.

Stones have targeted a play-off place after promotion as Ryman League champions.

New boys United start the season at Sutton on Saturday and co-owner Mr Casey feels it’s vital they are in contention.

He said: “You can’t be in this business and not compete.

“People say just consolidate or free-wheel for a year but that’s absolute nonsense. If you don’t win matches, people won’t want to watch.

“If you’re down the bottom, playing rubbish football and being overwhelmed each week, it just doesn’t work. What would make me happy is if we were competing for the play-offs right through to the last day of the season. That keeps the interest going.”

United are spending £650,000 to raise capacity at the Gallagher Stadium to 3,000. They would need to go up to 4,000 should they earn another promotion.

Mr Casey said: “We’re a bigger club than any team in this league. There’s no bigger club than Maidstone United.

“And even if we went up again, we’d still be one of the biggest teams in that league.

“The infrastructure, the appetite, the support for the game is here but we’ve just got to make sure people want to keep coming back. You can’t consolidate in 15th place and think people are going to come back, because they won’t.

“Consolidate and stabilise, you can keep that. We want to win every game and if the consequences are we’ve got to find another £1m to get the capacity up to 4,000, we’ll find it somehow.”

Six pages on Maidstone United in this Friday's Kent Messenger newspaper.