01-06-23. Harriers make their first real signing

The arrival of the former Bristol Rovers youngster, Kieran Phillips, at Aggborough earlier today heralded the first signing of the upcoming season by the Harriers manager Russ Penn. Joining us from Gloucester City the twenty year old is known as something of a goal machine in non league circles and has scored goals wherever he has been including fifteen with City. 

Kieran began his career with his home town club Bristol Rovers as an under eighteen player. Rovers turned down advances from Premier (at the time) club Southampton for his signature after playing against them in the 2019 Youth Cup. Once he turned twenty he was given games by Rovers in the EFL Trophy against Oxford Utd and the Chelsea U23 side.

He didn’t score in any of those appearances and was sent out on loan to Chippenham Town, Dorchester Town and Swindon Supermarine (scoring seventeen times with them) before being released by Rovers at the end of the 2021-22 season.

He then signed for Gloucester and that’s when he came into his own with an October he’ll never forget scoring in four consecutive games during that month, six in total. Then came an ankle injury that saw him miss thirteen games including a 0-1 win against us at Aggborough in November.

In the return game down there he was kept quiet by our excellent defence even though a defensive error lead to a last second equaliser for the Tigers.

Kierans arrival to Aggborough is hopefully not the last and, due to his young age, it would make sense to have an older head alongside him. That would probably be Amari Morgan-Smith but better would be another top signing instead of AMS.

There have been other signings since we won promotion to the National League with existing players signing new contracts. Caleb Richards, Shane Byrne, Alex Penny, Christian Dibble and Nathaniel Knight-Percival having all put pen to paper while Reiss McNally has joined us for the next two seasons following his loan with us from Solihull Moors last season.

Talking of Solihull it was a bit galling to see Kyle Morrison opting to join them instead of us but that’s football.   

Photo © GCAFC