With the side doing well both on and off the pitch, Maidstone United are already looking at extending the Gallagher Stadium.

Less than twelve months after moving back to the county town and with a successful season seeing fans flock to their games in the Ryman League Division One South, the Stones owners are already exploring options to expand the seating capacity and make improvements to the ground.

This season has seen the people of Maidstone coming to games in their numbers and an average gate of 1645 people has shown their is an appetite for football in the local community.

With 2291 having turned out for the New Year’s Day game with local rivals Sittingbourne, Stones co-owner Oliver Ash has been convinced there is a need to look at expanding the Gallagher Stadium already, but insisted improvements this summer will be limited to smaller changes:

“We’re looking at what we need to do and we’re looking at what we’d like to do. Because it has all happened so quickly, we are thinking between this season and next, we are only going to do what we need to do.”

“We will take a little bit longer to think about what we’d like to do about the future. We’re looking at the long term and what would happen if were to go up to the Conference or League Two level.”

“In the short term, we’ve had an expensive stadium build and in a sense we are still paying that off. We’ll want to continue to pay that off over the year, so we need to minimise the funds we spend on the stadium over the next year or two.”

“Over the close season we’ll focus on the essential things where there is an issue of comfort, so there won’t be much in the short term, but we’re certainly looking at the long term plan.”

Ash went on to explain how it was the people of Maidstone that have made the first season so successful:

“We’re all delighted here. The first year has gone very well and has been somewhat of a trial year in many ways because we had to go so fast to build the stadium.”

“We are learning as we go along and every day brings its’ own surprises, but we’ve got a good team of people here who are all dedicated with a huge group of volunteers running the community teams and helping us to run the stadium on matchdays.”

“We’ve got forty odd community teams, so there is a great atmosphere here and it’s nice at first team level that we are at the top of the league and the crowds are big.”

“We are finding our events are sold out, our clubhouse is booked out solid for six months, so it’s all going very well and glad of the positive impact it is having on the town of Maidstone.”

The Stones are back in action again on Saturday when they entertain Faversham Town at the Gallagher Stadium, with Horsham coming to Maidstone for the last game of the season on Saturday 27th April.