Venue: The Brewery Field Date: 05-10-24 Spennymoor Town 1 Harriers 1 Att: 1253 (away fans: 100) |
Harriers fail to win on the road once again
Report: Phil Lench
The Harriers have now failed to win a League game away from home since the opening day win at Darlington FC. Our only previous away draw came in the FA Cup at Buxton FC and this one at Spennymoor Town today makes it just three points on the road for a club that have aspirations to gain promotion back to the National League at the first attempt.
If things don’t begin to improve we might even find ourselves out of contention of the play-offs too!
We know that we have some crucial injuries (Alex Penny, Paul Downing, Ben Beresford and long term Luke Summerfield) but we have enough depth in the squad to overcome that problem but for some reason we don’t utilise it fully by having a goalkeeper on the bench when we could have taken our pick from two midfielders and a striker in Noah Rubio, Koby Hall and Seb Thompson to help us in the scoring department.
A mediocre first half for both sides, although the did score towards the end of the half, was forgettable with very little going right for either team. Passes were going astray, niggly fouls were resulting in yellow cards while we were getting our first attempt on goal when Harry Ibbitson sent a header over the bar a few minutes into the game. The Moors answered that with a similar header, and result, from Corey McKeown.
Jack Lambert, getting a second start in a row, fired weakly at the keeper Brad James and he held the ball easily. Another weak header, for us and Amari Morgan-Smith, also went over the bar and then came the goal.
A few minutes earlier Isaac Fletcher had sent a shot soaring over the bar into the street behind the stand but his next attempt was lower and in the net. A long ball was played on by Glen Taylor and Fletcher came in from outside the area to leave Joe Foulkes for dead and Christian Dibble way out of his area to finish the move off and put his side in front.
McKeown could have added a second goal for the Moors just before the break but his shot was deflected wide.
HT: 1 – 0
Ten minutes into the second half Phil Brown rang the changes (due to desperation?) by bringing on Ashley Hemmings and Maliq Cadogan for Ibbitson and Zak Brown. The improvement was immediate and we began to get more involved in the game. The reason could have been because of the two attempts on goal by McKeown who curled a ball in for Christian Dibble to push around the post and then the bar was hit when Callum Ross met Matt Dolans corner.
A hour in and all was well with the world once again. We scored.
Maz Kouhyar kept in an overhit cross on the byeline and crossed the ball back into the middle where Amari Morgan-Smith arrived in front of the goal, unmarked, to finish with a brilliant overhead kick.
That spurred us on to finish the game off but it never happened. Both AMS and Kouhyar had shots blocked from inside the Spennymoor box, then Jack Lambert fired over the bar before Kouhyar, again, saw his powerful shot was well saved by Brad James.
Now into extra added on time it was another strike from Maz that could have won us the game but his strike went narrowly wide of the goal. The game ended soon after all square and with hindsight it’s a good point to bring back from the Brewery Field but wouldn’t it have been nice to have brought two more?
We stay in a disappointing tenth place but that can be put behind us next Saturday when we return to FA Cup business when Guiseley AFC come to town.
FT: 1 – 1
Goal for Spennymoor: Fletcher 40
Goal for Harriers: Morgan-Smith 45
Talk about the game here
Latest table and stats here
Spennymoor Town | Goals | Subs | Time | Cards |
James | ||||
Ledger | ||||
Staunton | ||||
Ross | ||||
Dyson | ||||
Beals | ||||
Dolan | ||||
Fletcher | 71 | |||
Taylor | ||||
Ramshaw | ||||
McKeown | 79 | |||
Subs: | ||||
McGinley | ||||
Myers | 71 | |||
Mondal | 79 | |||
Hooper | ||||
Harris | ||||
Harriers | Goals | Subs | Time | Cards |
Dibble | ||||
Foulkes | ||||
Richards | ||||
Kandola | ||||
McNally | ||||
Davis | ||||
Lambert | 80 | |||
Brown | 54 | |||
Morgan-Smith | ||||
Ibbitson | 54 | |||
Kouhyar | ||||
Subs: | ||||
Palmer | ||||
Hemmings | 54 | |||
Cadogan | 54 | |||
Devine | ||||
Obadeyi | 80 | |||
Referee: | ||||
Mr Harry Jones | ||||
Belper |