Maidstone United shows ‘magic of the FA Cup’ in upset of Ipswich Town

A total of 732 clubs entered this year’s tournament, which opens with lower-level teams playing in preliminary rounds. Clubs from the top two levels of English soccer, the Premier League and the Championship, are given passes to the 64-team third round. Maidstone defeated six teams en route to Saturday’s match.

Of the 32 teams left standing in the fourth round, Maidstone, from the sixth-tier National League South, was the lowest ranked. It won on the road against Ipswich Town, a team poised for Premier League promotion as the second-ranked team in the second-tier Championship.

“I don’t think I’ve got the words to describe it,” Maidstone midfielder Sam Corne told the BBC after the upset. “We had belief, and it showed on the pitch, that desire to put our bodies on the line.”

Maidstone is a town of about 180,000 people southeast of London. The club is the first sixth-tier side to qualify for the fifth round of the FA Cup since 1978.

The first iteration of Maidstone United existed from 1897 to 1992, when financial issues forced its demise. That year it saw a mass exodus of top talent that left it with just two players.

New ownership took over a local youth side named Maidstone Invicta, and Maidstone United was re-formed seven tiers below its place in 1992. The team competed in the Kent County League Fourth Division, playing on a training field next to its old venue.

“We were a pub team again, basically,” John Bunyard, a longtime supporter, told ESPN. “It was all a little bit eccentric. We were an ex-Football League club playing teams like Sporting Bengal, teams most people haven’t heard of. But we’d still get hundreds of fans wherever we went. There’d be singing and some joshing between the fans, but wherever you went there’d be black-and-amber scarves.”

Maidstone clawed its way up to the fifth tier of English football by 2016 but has since oscillated between the fifth and sixth levels. It entered Saturday’s match as the fourth-best team in the National League South, having gone winless in its previous three games.

Ipswich Town controlled Saturday’s game in the early going, hitting the post twice on shots within the first 10 minutes.

Jamaican forward Lamar Reynolds put Maidstone ahead with a beautiful chip over the goalkeeper in the 43rd minute. Ipswich equalized in the 56th minute, but 10 minutes later Reynolds fed Corne, who slotted the game-winner at the near post.

Manager George Elokobi, a former Wolverhampton Wanderers defender, finished his playing career at Maidstone in 2022. He was appointed Maidstone’s caretaker manager in January 2023 and was hired to the full-time job in March. (Elokobi also made a cameo as a Manchester City player during the third season of “Ted Lasso.”)

The Cameroonian manager described his team’s upset win as inspirational.

“This is for our community, Maidstone,” he said. “Again, the magic of the FA Cup. We have to believe. Just look at that. That is amazing. History has been made here.”