09-08-19 – Preview – Bradford (Park Avenue) AFC Vs Kidderminster Harriers

The Harriers will be venturing North to Bradford tomorrow to face a side that have made the worst start to a season imaginable. Two 5-0 defeats, the management sacked and we haven’t even completed the first week yet. We, too, are in a state of disarray with the fans up in arms over our poor start to the season that’s seen us throw away two points at home to Leamington FC on opening day and then at AFC Telford Utd on Tuesday evening the 300+ travelling fans saw what could be termed one of the worst performances seen in many a year.

Although we started well at the Bucks Head it didn’t take long for the home side to dominate the game and we didn’t have the answer. A first half goal from the former Red Darryl Knights gave them the lead and a second half goal from Aaron Williams, that made a mockery of our defending, finished us off and they could have gone on to score more.

Let’s put that behind us now though and look forward to taking three points off Bradford (Park Avenue). Their two bad defeats came at the hands of Curzon Ashton on opening day and then on Tuesday at home to Guiseley the scoreline was repeated.

Within twenty four hours the management duo of Garry Thompson and Shaun Gardner were gone and within another twenty four hours Marcus Law and former Harrier Lee Fowler had taken their place.

Like us BPA have a policy of playing academy kids as much as possible and, like us, theirs was forced on them following most of the first team leaving at the end of last season due to financial reasons. They too have found out that a youth policy is no good for this level of football and, like us, they’ve found that they don’t have enough senior players to field a first eleven and a bench without resorting to kids.

They do have one ‘kid’ that should be decent though after nineteen year old Alex Hurst was sold to Port Vale a few weeks ago and promptly loaned back to them until January. 

We should be able to go into the game with an unchanged starting line up again but James O’Connor could be doubtful following a knee injury picked up prior to the Tuesday evening game. It doesn’t look likely that we’ll be bringing anyone new in before the game so John Pemberton will have to go with what he’s got.

Talking about the manager it appears that following the defeat at Telford some twats thought it would be a great idea to slag and boo him off for the result. He can only work with what he has at his disposal and if funds aren’t forthcoming, either from above or if there are none to give, then how can he be to blame? John has been honest with the fans since the start of pre-season without laying the blame at anyones door. We can all see what he’s referring to in his interviews yet only two games in and he’s getting unwarranted stick.

Most of the fans are intelligent enough to realise this but still the idiots tar us all with the same brush. If any true fan see’s this kind of behaviour happening then please step in and stop it. Shout them down and cheer the team off because that would be doing far more good than booing.

The only thing now is to inflict another big defeat on Bradford (Park Avenue). At least it’ll make us feel better.

Photo © KHFC

Teams:

Harriers from:

Gregory, Palmer, Davidson, O’Connor, Higginson, Penn, Johnson, Moyo, R Williams, Prosser, Weeks, Stratford, Taylor-Randle, Scott, Butterfield, Austin, Chambers, E Williams, White, Peniket.

Bradford (Park Avenue) from:

Andrew, Bennett, Laird, Moran, Lund, Cresswell, Marriott, Croft, Rathbone, Holmes, Hedley, Clark, Hurst, Wright, Hinds, Knight, Hakeem, Dockerty.

Referee: Mr Richard Aspinall. Blackpool

Talk about the game here

Links to Bradford (Park Avenue) AFC websites here

Find Pubs around Kidderminster here