Following their midweek Kent Senior Cup Semi Final win, Maidstone United coach Hakan Hayrettin has been talking to KSN about the club’s relegation battle and about the support that he believes could still give the Stones a real chance of avoiding the drop out of National League.

“When I looked round the ground on Tuesday and saw all that amazing support, I think it was amazing!” the Stones coach began.

“It’s an amazing club with amazing support and I keep saying that we don’t have to be the best team, and we don’t have to be the best players, we’ve got to be in the winning team – we’ve got to find the winning formula. If we can slowly but surely keep making steps in the right direction that’s what we’re aiming to do, and we’ll see that.”

“Secondly, the team is not just those on the pitch – the team is, and I’ve said this before, the team is the person on the turnstiles, the hot-dog seller, the stand cleaner, logistically behind the scenes who work very hard – when they get the points it’s for everyone and the supporters.”

“And the supporters are the bigger team and we are so happy to have them as well home and away – they are amazing! Results may not have been going our way, we’re still seeing progression, the club needs it. If you look at our home form since we took over, it’s not bad. So, we need to continue that and need to get the support behind us…”

“Slowly but surely we’re getting there – the home form’s improved but we must do better away from home – we need to keep getting them to believe what’s required and keep getting them to understand how we’re going to get there and what we’re going to do because I’ve won this League as a player; I’ve won it as a coach working with John at Luton and I’ve also been relegated and so know both ends of it.”

“If we didn’t know or didn’t believe in what we were saying… but we can see the signs that we’re going in the right direction!”

“The personalities and characters who are strong will hopefully pull the rest of them in the right direction and no-one likes going out losing every week and no-one likes to lose the way we did at Wrexham last weekend – we played very good football against Eastleigh in patches but didn’t get the result – confidence is low so it’s never too high with success and never too low for failure.”

“At the end of the day it’s all about getting the three points and how you get it and that’s what we’re achieving or aiming to achieve when we come out every week, but it’s getting them to understand it as their way that they were doing it before wasn’t working!”

Next up for the Stones is another derby – Gary Hill brings his Ebbsfleet United side to the Gallagher on Saturday for a Kent derby with implications at both ends of the table… “Gary’s a good pal of mine,” the Stones coach said, “and he and Ian have done a great job since they’ve been there, but I hope they don’t come here expecting an easy game.”

“We’ve got nothing but Cup Finals left this season, but who wouldn’t want to play at the Gallagher – if I was fit enough, I’d love to play out there. I can’t comment on how they will play, but just say that we’ll be going out to win the game!”