Twumasi: Team spirit so helpful

Seth Twumasi knows all about relegation battles – and can hardly believe the revival at Maidstone.

Twumasi has sampled success and failure in bids to beat the drop, staying up with Northampton but going down with Yeovil.

United are flying after an eight-game unbeaten run, sitting top of the form table and playing with the confidence of a team who believe they will survive.

Right-back Twumasi, 26, said: “It’s brilliant. I always knew that the talent was in the squad. It was just a matter of putting it together and being hard to beat, working hard for each other and at the moment it’s paying off.

“A little bit of experience coming in has helped as well, with Reece Prestedge and Stuart Lewis passing their experience on to the young ones.

“I hope I’ve played my part in that as well. When I came here the squad was young. Now we’ve got a few more players in who are experienced.

“This is probably the best turnaround I’ve known. I’ve been in relegation battles quite a lot and this one’s unbelievable with what we’ve managed to do so far but it’s not over until the fat lady sings.

“We’ve always had the characters in the changing room, we’ve always believed we deserve to be higher than we are.

“Even when we were losing games, the spirit has always been in the changing room.

“Everyone gets on, there’s no cliques, so that’s always going to help when you’re fighting relegation. We’ve managed to turn it around and long may it continue.”

Twumasi rejected Football League moves during the January transfer window. As well as wanting to help United, part-time football gave him time to work on his growing Mirage Football Academy academy back in Ghana.

It’s too early to talk about next season but he could stay on.

He said: “It’s definitely worked out for the best. You can see from now that I wanted to stay to see the job through and hopefully that’s paying off on the pitch and we’re getting the results we need.

“We’ll see what happens at the end of the season. For me, if I’m standing here now having to make a decision, what I’m doing right now suits me but in football anything can change.”

Twumasi’s academy is producing results. He has a boy scoring goals for Werder Bremen under-19s while former France international Willy Sagnol is in Ghana running his eye over players for Bordeaux.

Twumasi is also to Maidstone about youngsters involved Gallagher.

He said: “The academy’s going well. I haven’t been over since December but my partner’s over there who’s seeing everything through.

“He gives me updates all the time, what’s happening and who’s ready and Willy Sagnol is in Ghana right now having a look at the boys to see if he can take them to Bordeaux. Potentially, it can go far.” talking getting at the