Summer signing Tom Murphy is convinced Maidstone have nothing to worry about in the National League.

And he should know, having spent the last two years in the division with fellow part-time club Dover.

The goalscoring winger starred as Whites finished eighth and reached the FA Cup third round in their first season up. And even though last season was wrecked by a torn hamstring, Murphy watched his team-mates make the play-offs.

He said: “You need to be fit, you need to be organised, you’ve just got to make sure you don’t make many mistakes because you will get punished.

“The frontmen are a lot more clinical but there’s nothing to be afraid of, not even the full-time teams. At Dover, we weren’t full-time but we were a lot fitter than most of them.

“As long as we prepare right and we turn up every week, we’ll have a chance against any team."

Murphy, who came through the youth ranks at Gillingham, is out to make up for lost time after being frozen out at Dover. Sidelined for five months after tearing his hamstring, he couldn’t get his place back and was released in the summer.

He said: “When I came back, the team were up there in the play-offs and I never really got my place back.

“It was tough because I’d played so well the season before, I’d scored goals against a lot of the big teams and I wasn’t fazed by playing those teams again."

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