STONES HIT BACK TO DENY ROVERS

WITH legendary Leeds United and England defender Terry Cooper watching from the stands, his managerial son Mark saw play-off bound Forest Green squander a two-goal lead in their final home game of the regular season.

“El Tel” swapped the warm climes of Spain for the green rolling hills of the Cotswolds and the former Bristol City and Birmingham City boss would have been pleased with Rovers’ frontfoot start. Goals from the recalled Keanu Marsh-Brown and a Kevin Lokko own-goal gave Rovers a seemingly unassailable two-goal cushion, but Maidstone showed their resilience to grab a point through second-half strikes from teenager Harry Phipps and Joe Pigott with nine minutes to go.

With a play-off semi-final against Dagenham looming, Cooper insists his side will be ready.

He said: “These are all good tests for us going into the play-offs, we look like we can carve teams open and we did that today.

“We made some horrendous mistakes at the end – I don’t need to highlight where, everyone at the game can see what happened.”

Meanwhile, Maidstone boss Jay Saunders was delighted with his side’s comeback, saying: “We kept going and we showed the character that we have had for the past 13 to 14 games that got us out into safety.”

Rovers peppered Maidstone from the off and took an 11th-minute lead when Marsh-Brown picked his spot from the edge of the box.

Maidstone’s Lokko could count himself unlucky ten minutes after the resumption as Marsh-Brown’s driven cross deflected off him for number two.

Maidstone sparked into life. Phipps pounced after Sam Russell could only parry a Seth Nana-Twumasi cross before then spilling a Bobby-Joe Taylor fizzer for Pigott to rifle home.