Paul Watson scored a dramatic late winner to leave Brighton top of the tree at Christmas.

Skipper Carlo Missirian described Watson's goal as a "champagne moment in the club's season" as Brighton finished the first half of the Kent/Sussex Regional League calendar unbeaten.

At half time away to Maidstone it looked like Brighton might be heading to a first defeat of the campaign as they trailed 3-1 and again in the final minute, with the score at 3-3, the hosts seemed set to claim victory when they were awarded a short corner.

But keeper Pete Ashdown saved from the short corner and a tremendous counter attack ended with Richard Cooke's searching pass being met by Watson with a reverse stick finish into the bottom right hand corner.

Missirian said: "It was a champagne moment, a seminal moment in the club's history in that we have never gone halfway through a season unbeaten. We have never had a better start.

"Psychologically, for a team to come back like that was awesome. There was never a moment when we didn't think we would got at least a draw.

"It shows the depth and strength of our squad because we had Luke Williams and Gareth Lendrum drop out on the morning of the game through injury. We missed them but we still got the three points."

The result means Brighton will take an eight point lead into the second half of the season and they are 12 points clear of promotion hopefuls Maidstone, who are now fourth in the table.

Brighton were 2-0 down within ten minutes and, although Graham Pruce pulled a goal back, Maidstone led 3-1 at the interval.

Player-coach Craig Carolan levelled matters with two short corner strikes in the second half, taking his remarkable tally to 27 goals in 11 games, and Watson then took centre stage.