MAIDSTONE United are looking for new sponsors after club chairman Paul Bowden Brown cancelled their deal with KF Concept.

Bowden Brown insisted there was no financial crisis, but admitted that the club had not received a penny from KF since February 2004.

KF Concept, who also sponsor Lashings Cricket Club, were unveiled as the Stones sponsors before the start of the 2003-2004 season, stepping in after the club’s previous sponsors Joebec.com went bust.

The press conference trumpeted a deal that was said to be the envy of non-league football, but failed to answer a more pressing question - what did KF Concept actually do?

The answer, it eventually emerged, was that they were a betting syndicate, headed by Kevin Foster, a former taxi driver who was once on the books at Gillingham.

The syndicate netted vast amounts of money from betting on sporting events, but the Financial Services Authority looked into the ot the matter. In February 2004 the FSA froze the syndicate’s assets and the supply of money to syndicate members - and Maidstone United - ran dry.

Foster was still able to gamble, making £400,000 on Euro 2004, but he was also receiving death threats. In November 2004 a Land Rover was driven at the gates of his Wellwood Farm house in Doddington and set on fire.

Bowden Brown reluctantly decided to cancel the Stones’ agreement with KF after a period of reflection over Christmas and says he has already received two enquiries from interested replacements.

The club has had little luck with past sponsors. In 2000 a deal with Lashings fell through after a row over money and in 1992 the old football league club had the word “Prosperity” plastered over their shirts. They promptly went bust.

“I don’t feel that we’re jinxed,” Bowden Brown told the Kent Messenger. “We did very well out of Joebec and KF Concept, who paid us a lot of money in a short space of time.

“Now we’re just hoping that a similar thing will happen when Joebec pulled out - Kevin read the KM and picked up the phone.”

Bowden Brown is hoping that the Stones’ new ground at Whatman Way will make them a far more attractive proposition to potential backers: “The potential for advertising and marketing is phenomenal because of the new stadium.”

He also said the club would “look favourably” at the idea of reprinting replica shirts with the name of any new sponsor, should one be found before the end of the season.