07-05-22 – Report – Kidderminster Harriers 1 Darlington FC 0

Harriers get through the final league game

Report: Phil Lench

The Harriers bought the regular season to a close with this half paced home win against Darlington FC this afternoon.

It was never going to be a full blooded game with neither side having anything lying on the result. We already knew that we’d be finishing in fourth place while Darlington could have moved from their thirteenth placing up to eleventh place, depending on other results, but there’s no extra reward for doing so. At least today the Harriers manager, Russ Penn, approached this game with less caution then he did at Leamington FC last Monday.

Todays starting line up was generally the one that he usually relies upon apart from the absent Amari Morgan-Smith who is believed to have a toe injury. Ethan Freemantle started in place of him but with the risk that there was no direct replacement on the bench. On that bench was Omari Sterling-James though along with Keith Lowe who was making his final league appearance for us before going into semi-retirement. 

As I said this was a half paced game and the first half contained very little to write home about. It was mainly the Reds on top without really troubling the Darlington keeper Tommy Taylor. Saying that they didn’t trouble Luke Simpson much either. Half chances came the way of Ashley Hemmings, Keziah Martin and Geraldo Bajrami but the best chance fell the way of Sam Austin when his shot from the edge of the area curled narrowly over the bar.

HT: 0 – 0

The second half got underway with Sammy making way for Sterling-James with it looking likely that Sam was now being rested. With Boston Utd the only team in the fight for the last play off place winning (at Farsley Celtic) then it was more important to manage the team correctly.

It didn’t take long for us to0 finally open the scoring in the fifty second minute. A bit of pinball in front of the Darlington goal started with a shot from Hemmings that rebounded back to Bajrami who also fired goalwards and again it came back to us. Then it was Keziah Martins turn but his shot appeared to hit the upright, bounce onto the keeper and into the net. It was Martin who was credited with the goal at first but it looked more like an own goal to those who saw it and was eventually given to Taylor.

We tried to get a second goal through Mark Carrington when his, outside of the boot, volley went into the keepers arms but by then we had decided to just contain the visitors rather than go all out for a clinching goal.

With the freedom given to them the visitors began to find more scoring chances without really troubling us too much. Jarrett Rivers had a shot blocked by Caleb Richards with the ball falling kindly for Nathan Lowe who then shot straight at Simpson. Keith Lowe came on for his league farewell along with other substitutions for both sides. 

Darlington had their first corners of the game and also their first real shot when Nathan Lowes free kick skimmed the bar as Simpson appeared to get his fingertips to the ball but the referee flagged for a goal kick instead.

Darlington faced a problem just after when Jake Lawlor had to leave the field injured, never to return, leaving them down to ten men but we showed no interest in taking advantage of the situation and the game drew to a close with the bonus of an important game under the lights against Boston this coming Thursday.

FT: 1 – 0

Goal for Harriers: Taylor 52 (og)

The Harriers Online MotM is: Joe Foulkes

Talk about the game here

Latest table and stats here

Harriers	Goals	Subs	Time	Cards
Simpson
Foulkes
Richards
Cameron			63
Bajrami
Penny
Austin			46
Carrington			72
Freemantle
Hemmings
Martin
Subs:
K Lowe			63
Montrose			72
Sterling-James			46
White
Redmond
Darlington FC	Goals	Subs	Time	Cards
Taylor
Griffiths
Smith			55
Lawlor
Wheater
N Lowe
Rose
Dos Santos			55
O’Neill			66
Lambert
Thompson
Subs:
Hedley			55
Mondal
Cassidy
Purver			66
Rivers			55
Referee:
Mr Darren Rogers
Warrington