GULLS LEFT GUTTED BY ODUBADE’S ACE BRACE

TWO goals on his full debut from Yemi Odubade helped Maidstone to secure victory over Torquay United in their first visit to the English Riviera in over 25 years.

Odubade joined the Stones following his departure from Eastleigh and netted a goal in each half to help Maidstone secure their fourth away of the season, much to the delight of manager Jay Saunders.

“When I signed him (Odubade), I felt he had something that could add to what we’ve already got,” said Saunders.

“He hasn’t played for a few weeks at Eastleigh and he’s only had a couple of training sessions with us, but I’ve been really pleased with him.

“Our problems have been scoring recently but we took our chances today, but we let them (Torquay) back in the game twice which is disappointing. But I’ll give the lads full credit, we’ve had a long trip down here. We left at 7 o’clock this morning and you can see that they are a bit tired, but they kept going.”

The Stones were in front on 15 minutes when Gulls right-back Aman Verma failed to read the danger following a Bobby-Joe Taylor cross and Odubade was on hand to pounce.

In the 19th minute, the visitors doubled their advantage when a free-kick from Taylor deceived the Torquay defence before falling to Liam EnverMarum, who duly slotted home.

The Gulls reduced their arrears in the 38th minute, as some quick thinking from Luke Young enabled Blissett to race through and beat the offside trap to score his third goal of the campaign. Maidstone restored their two-goal cushion on 48 minutes as Flisher threaded Odubade through on goal and after seeing his initial effort parried by Moore he turned home the rebound. The Gulls hit back on 55 minutes when Dan Sparkes found the back of the net with a shot on the turn as he latched onto a loose ball inside the box. In the dying minutes, Sparkes almost grabbed an equaliser for Torquay after being set up by substitute Sam Chaney, but he drilled his effort wide as Maidstone claimed all three points and condemned the Gulls to a third straight defeat. Gulls manager Kevin Nicholson said: “I can’t remember a game between any two teams where one has gifted goals as badly as we did with those three. “If you are going to play at home, you can’t just give teams those kind of gifts – we gave them a twogoal head start but we got ourselves back in it and we give it away again. “The players have got to go away now and look at themselves and they’ve got to get their heads around it. “We’ve got a lot of work to do, they are a young side and they’ve got to grow up quickly because football is a cruel game.”