07-09-24. Chorley FC 2 Kidderminster Harriers 1. Match report

Harriers fail on their travels once again

Report: Phil Lench

Three weekend away games and we’ve lost every single one of them and, to be honest, I just can’t see how we’ve managed that. In all three games at Warrington Town, Scunthorpe Utd and now Chorley FC we’ve played well enough to win them all but sadly that’s just not happened.

Is the reason because we’re a soft touch or is it because we’re not a physical side? Or is it because we simply seem to be a first half team away from home.

Again today we started off playing some superb football and in two of those games we gained an early lead but failed to build on it. At times today Chorley just could not cope with our passing and build up play that they resorted to some devious tactics but we rode through that until just before the break when, from a corner that never was, we allowed the home side back into the game.

In the second half it was, again, a set piece that was to be our undoing and it was then game over. It appears that following the game the team were imprisoned in the dressing room by Phil Brown and it’s easy to see why. 

We got the game underway on a pitch that was a revelation after previous seasons of an optical illusion of a ploughed field. At last Chorley had come into the 21st century and installed a pitch of some quality. It made the game so easy for us to play on and that’s just what we did.

There was a return to the side for Amari Morgan-Smith following the concussion protocol that lasted some three weeks and five games. There was also the continuation of Reiss McNally as a lone centre half due the in absence of Alex Penny and Paul Downing. Reiss coped admirably just as expected.

The goal, our only goal, came nine minutes in after we had already come close through Zak Brown, Tope Obadeyi and Ashley Hemmings. Browns effort being punched away by Matt Urwin in the home goal. Urwin was called into action again a minute later to watch a Obadeyi shot roll past the post and then back into punching mode to stop Hemmings shot from going in. He could do nothing about the goal though as Zaks header, from a free kick, went in off the post to give us that early lead.

We carried on dominating the game without really coming close to scoring again. Maz Kouhyar was giving Adam Henley and Craig Hewitt a hard time as they tried to combat his trickery. Hewitt going in the book after hauling him down to the ground as he skipped past him.

Caleb Richards came close with a shot across goal that went just wide then Luke Summerfield tried his luck from distance only to see it pushed away by the keeper. Kouhyar then sent one over the corner of the goalposts.

With the half drawing to a close Chorley began to get to grips with the game and found a way to counteract the threat of Maz. That then enabled them to begin their own attacking moves and it was through one such that the equalising goal came even if it should, possibly, never have been reached in the first place after the ball was put out of play by one of their own. Anyway the corner was given and, considering the static defending, Scott Wilson had the easy task of heading the ball home.

HT: 1 – 1

As we’ve found in recent away games we come out for the second half still in dressing room mode. The fifteen minutes in their dressing room had given Andy Preece all the time needed to put his message across in how to deal with any threat from us. They came back out and put that into practise for the next forty minutes.

It took them just nine minutes to seal the game, and the points, when Mark Ellis headed the ball home from another set piece, an Adam Blakeman long throw in. Ellis’s bullet header leaving Christian Dibble rooted to the spot.

Our response was to go into a shell and the game passed us by for a while as Chorley took complete control but a bit of angry shouting from the touchline and the use of substitutions began to instil some belief in ourselves once again. On the hour mark David Davis and Tope Obadeyi made way for Jack Lambert and Maliq Cadogan and we started to sense there was going to be an improvement even though a goal still seemed unlikely.

Dibble had just saved us from conceding a third goal, this time from a Tom Carr header when Cadogan ventured up pitch on a mini solo run that ended in a shot that only just cleared the bar as Urwin tipped it just about over. It was looking brighter at last. 

An Amari Morgan-Smith header from a corner was cleared off the line by Blakeman but after that we huffed and puffed without ever managing to break through the strong Chorley defence. Seb Thompson came on for a tiring AMS but didn’t achieve anything in his short time on the pitch and we came away from Victory Park without that all important victory.

FT: 2 – 1

Goals for Chorley: Wilson 44, Ellis 54

Goal for Harriers: Zak Brown 9

The Harriers Online MotM is: Caleb Richards

Talk about the game here

Latest table and stats here

Chorley FC	Goals	Subs	Time	Cards
Urwin
Henley
Ellis
Wilson
Blakeman
Nolan			82
Clarke
Calveley
Sampson			66
Carr			73
Hewitt			90
Subs:
Bird
Smith			82
Horbury			73
Rice			90
Touray			66
Harriers	Goals	Subs	Time	Cards
Dibble
Foulkes
Richards
McNally
Davis			60
Obadeyi			60
Brown
Summerfield
Morgan-Smith			79
Hemmings
Kouhyar
Subs:
Bishop
Devine
Lambert			60
Cadogan			60
Thompson			79
Referee:
Mr Luis Griffiths
Bootle