Delighted Jay Saunders spoke of a challenging season after leading Maidstone to National League safety.

The Stones celebrated with about 200 travelling fans after clinching survival with a 3-1 win at Chester.

They flirted with the play-offs in the first half of the campaign but survival was always going to represent success, particularly after star man Joe Pigott was sold in January.

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Saunders brought Maidstone out of a 17-game winless run last month and now back-to-back wins over AFC Fylde and Chester have seen them home.

Boss Saunders said: “We took a hell of a long time to get across the line but I’m delighted it’s done.

“I’ve got mixed emotions because as the season’s panned out it’s been more disappointments.

“It started very well and obviously we faded but the boys showed a lot of character today.

“It’s been very challenging. It’s been a long season and it’s amazing how it turned very quickly.

“Obviously at one point everyone was getting excited about the play-offs and I kept saying we need to get to 50 points because I just felt the squad maybe wasn’t deep enough.

“I always had an inkling we might lose a couple of players - I won’t keep going over their names - and we struggled to replace them and struggled to replace the goals.

“Obviously we’ve taken a lot of stick and I’ll take that on the chin because I’m the manager and that’s what you’ve got to do but there’s been plenty of lows this year and they’ve all come pretty much after Christmas.

“It was tough but you learn a lot more about yourself and about players and teams when you’re losing games.”

Delays on the train up meant United didn’t arrive until just before 2pm, hampering preparations.

That perhaps explained their slow start as relegated Chester, fielding a young side packed with homegrown youngsters, got after them.

But Blair Turgott’s penalty and goals from Michael Phillips and Josh Hare earned victory for a Stones side who had Alex Wynter sent off before half-time.

Saunders said: “It wasn’t our best performance, the first 15 or 20 minutes I thought we were all over the place but we had a train delay, we had to shorten the warm-up, on a hot day, and it took us a little while to adjust to it.

“Plus we didn’t know anything about what Chester were going to put out because they made a lot of changes.

“So it was difficult and the boys showed a lot of character and got the 2-0 lead and then we made hard work for ourselves which, if I’m honest, we’ve done all season."

Read the match report from Maidstone's 3-1 win at Chester