15-01-18 – Preview – Stockport County Vs Harriers

The Harriers have it all to do again tomorrow evening if they hope to get past Stockport County in this FA Trophy 2nd round replay. Do that and an away tie at Maidenhead Utd has been lined up for us and in the process a new ground for the fans. If we don’t get through then it’ll also be a new ground for County fans too with neither of us having played them before.

After that great fightback on Saturday we’ll be wanting to start off on the right foot this time and get the early lead that our first half dominance at Aggborough failed to produce. Going into the break a goal down was something we didn’t deserve, great goal though it was.

It took a missed penalty from Emmanuel Sonupè to spur us on and after going two goals down Fraser Horsfall got us back into the game before Snoopy completed the comeback four minutes later to make up for his penalty miss. As for Fraser he was sent off for two yellow cards – the second of which was never deserved – but he’ll still be available to us tomorrow. He’ll miss out on the trip to Curzon Ashton this coming Saturday instead. 

Definitely missing for us will be Tyrone Williams after it was announced on the clubs website before the first game that he would be leaving us sometime this week. The talk is that he’s off to Solihull Moors but others have mentioned Southport but Williams has already turned a Northern club down as being too far away so it probably won’t be them. Even if he wasn’t leaving us he would be out serving a four match ban following his second red card of the season at Chorley FC last Tuesday.

Declan Weeks is now the only injured player in the team but he should be on his way back soon while Joel Taylor might be on the bench following his short illness.

Stockport have an injury doubt with Dan Cowan after he limped off with a dead leg on Saturday and also Matthew Warburton who is on his way back from injury but may not be risked yet. County signed defender Jamie Stott on loan from Oldham Athletic earlier today but he won’t be eligible to play because he wasn’t signed before the first game.

There’s a lot resting on the result of this game and I’m sure that both sides will do their utmost to win it in the first ninety minutes. We sure as hell don’t want extra time and penalties do we?

Photo © KHFC

Teams:

Harriers from:

Hall, Eve, Palmer, Taylor, Horsfall, O’Connor, Vaughan, Pearson, Croasdale, Truslove, Weeks, Austin, Bradley, A Brown, Sonupè, McQuilkin, N’Gwatala, Ironside, Wright.

Stockport from:

Hinchcliffe, Ormson, Clarke, Cowan, Duxbury, Minihan, O’Halloran, Smalley, Ball, Brazel, Dixon, McKenna, Stephenson, Downing, Smith, Stopforth, Thomas, Walker, Winter, Etches, Oswell, Turner, Warburton.

Talk about the game here and phone the Harriers Hotline on 01905 577 777 after the game too.

Links to Stockport County websites here

Find Pubs around Kidderminster here