Maidstone United Football Club is a professional English football club based in Maidstone, Kent. They currently compete in the National League South, the sixth tier of the English football league system.
The current club filled the void left by the old Maidstone United, which was a member of The Football League between 1989 and 1992. That club was forced out of the league following bankruptcy but the nucleus of a new club was built around the youth squad. Maidstone Invicta were originally a youth team but made the step up to adult football in 1992 after being elected to the Kent County League Fourth Division in 1993 and subsequently progressed through the non-league pyramid. They changed their name to Maidstone United in 1995. They played in the Isthmian League Premier Division from 2013 having been promoted from the Isthmian League Division One South and won the league in the 2014–15 season to gain promotion to the National League South (formerly the Conference South) for the 2015–16 season. Maidstone gained a second successive promotion to the National League in 2016, bringing fifth-tier football back to the town for the first time since the old club was promoted to the Football League in 1989. However, after three seasons back in the fifth tier of English football, Maidstone were relegated back to the National League South in 2019.
Maidstone were without a stadium of their own from their creation until 2012 when the Gallagher Stadium, located near Maidstone town centre, was opened at the start of the 2012–13 season.
This page also has a version in other languages : Мейдстон Юнайтед (russian)