Maidstone United 0 Billericay Town 1

A LATE goal from Billy Bricknell handed Maidstone United a 1-0 defeat at home to Billericay Town in Ryman League Division 1 South on Saturday.

For the second consecutive home game, Maidstone failed to take advantage of their opponents being reduced to 10 men.

The major incident of the first half was s shocking foul by Billericay's Paul Shave on 28 minutes when the midfielder kicked Ben Lewis in the face and was shown a straight red card.

For the rest of the half, Maidstone were well on top and nearly took the lead when a Billericay defender deflected a corner onto his own crossbar.

After the restart, the Essex side were grateful to their keeper Ronnie Worster for a fantastic reaction save from a Mo Takaloo shot.

United went even closer to scoring when Lynden Rowland headed Sam Tydman's cross wide when it would have been easier to score and with 11 minutes to go, Bricknell's powerful shot slipped through Pat Mullin's hands to give the Essex side the points.