08-10-21 – Preview – Kidderminster Harriers Vs Brackley Town

Preview: Phil Lench

Quickly on the back of the Harriers progressing into the next round of the FA Cup at the expense of Ware FC we welcome fellow league side Brackley Town to Aggborough and we’re hoping to get points onboard.

Our league form of late has not been so successful as our cup form with a home defeat against Gateshead a month ago followed a few weeks later by another defeat up at AFC Fylde. Those reverses have seen us drop from third to seventh in the table and we now need to regain that lost ground against Brackley tomorrow.

We came away from the Ware replay on Tuesday evening relatively unscathed on the injury front compared to recent games where we’ve seen the squad decimated by injuries long and medium term. Joe Foulkes is the biggest loss now that he’s out for at least six months although we’re still awaiting confirmation of the extent of his knee injury from his parent club, Walsall. That injury came at Ware last Saturday.

We have also been without the services of Lewis Montrose and Omari Sterling-James in recent weeks following the injuries they received at Fylde. Russ Penn, the Harriers manager, did say in a video the other day that he does expect them to feature at some point tomorrow. Then on Tuesday evening Mark Carrington and Geraldo Bajrami also picked up slight knocks and were substituted although that may have just been precautionary.

In the Ware replay game goals from Amari Morgan-Smith, Ethan Freemantle and Alex Penny got us through to the next round where we’ll be up against Bedfont Sports, a club based in London and, like Ware and Sporting Khalsa they play on a 4g pitch. This seems to be the trend at clubs lower down now and something we’ll have to get used to.

With that goal, and his overall performance, Freemantle will now be hoping for a start against Brackley. He was the urgency that had been missing from our play for a while now and hopefully he’ll be able to continue that again.

Brackley have been going well in the league again, as they seem to do most seasons but without actually winning anything. Their team is mainly unchanged since last season, like ours, and still includes the likes of the former harriers keeper Danny Lewis along with captain and defender Gareth Dean along with James Armson, Lee Ndlovu and Matt Lowe who all seem to have been there for years. They have been joined this term by another former Harrier Alex Prosser.

He’s still waiting for his first goal for them having played in five games so far. He played in the FA Cup tie at Hanley Town a week ago in a game that Brackley looked well below what they are capable of and in the replay at theirs on Tuesday evening a lone goal from Ndlovu saw them through to face Guiseley AFC in the next round but again they didn’t play all that well.

Last time out in the league they beat, now managerless, AFC Telford Utd 2-1 at the Bucks Head.

Armson should be back for them following his red card in the home defeat against Darlington FC last month with the three match ban expiring after the Hanley game in midweek. Along with Ndlovu their leading scorer is Lowe with them both on five goals apiece. Connor Franklin and Glenn Walker should both be available to them again following injury.

With Brackley having an eight point advantage over us – we do have a game in hand though – we really do need the three points to close that gap a little. It’s a tough shout to say if we could, or not, but we’ll give it our best shot.

Photo © KHFC

Teams:

Harriers from:

Simpson, Emery, C Richards, Cameron, Penny, Bajrami, K Lowe, Austin, Montrose, Lissimore, Carrington, Bell, Martin, Freemantle, Tolley, Hemmings, Morgan-Smith, White, Sterling-James.

Brackley Town from:

Lewis, Worby, Dean, Myles, Franklin, Cullinane-Liburd, Wise, Lomas, Armson, M Lowe, Murombedzi, Walker, York, Prosser, J Richards, Putz, Ndlovu, Rolt, Mitford, Yusuf.

Referee: Mr Dale Wooton. Cheltenham

Talk about the game here

Links to Brackley Town websites here

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