10-02-24. FA Trophy 5th rd. Peterborough Sports 1 Kidderminster Harriers 0. Match report

The only moment of quality and it didn’t come from the Harriers

Report: Phil Lench

A much changed side for the Harriers at Peterborough Sports, in the FA Trophy today, ended in a last gasp defeat when the former Harriers striker Michael Gash smashed a Kane Felix cross into the back of Tom Palmers net in the ninety third minute of the game and, in doing so, handed Sports a passage into the quarter-finals for the first time in their history.

The only moment and finish of quality in the entire game.

Palmer was part of a re-jigged line-up that had the aim of giving Phil Brown a chance to see how the fringe players performed and he’ll have gone home knowing that it’s a plan that failed and will probably not be repeated. The only one to shine was Palmer who was a rock between the posts but stood no chance with the winning goal.

The other fringers were Aaron Harper-Bailey, Owen Hesketh,  Christian Oxlade-Chamberlain, Kai Lissimore and Krystian Pearce. Of those only Pearce looked the part and so he should with all the experience that he’s accrued over the years.

On an admittedly poor pitch it was a poor affair from our point of view but the Sports fans around us seemed quite happy with what Sports were serving up. There was very little – in fact next to none – goalmouth action for us with Gold Omotayo, Sam Bellis and Hesketh failing to get into the Peter Crooks area. Sports faired better with countless corners but, again, no shots worthy of note with most of their chances going well wide or over. Anything else was mopped up by Palmer.

HT: 0 – 0

The second half was much the same as the first with the only change being Shane Byrne coming on for Zak Brown. His dad, Phil, had seen enough in the first half from the poor view he and Dean Holdsworth had from their seats in the stand we were in to realise that our midfield was non existent and Byrne did give us more in the position but being let down by those up front.

Later on Ashley Hemmings and Amari Morgan-Smith came on to rectify that but again with no end result. Hemmings tried his best on the poor surface and got a few crosses in but there was no one there to convert them. The best chance of the game fell for AMS but his shot was deflected the wrong side of the post for a fruitless corner.

With the ninety minutes approaching it looked certain the match would be decided on penalties but the ex Harrier striker Gash had different ideas. Just seconds after being given the man of the match award by his fans up he popped to fire home Felix’s cross from one side of the pitch to the other and fire rifle home an un-stoppable strike into the back of the net three minutes into the four added on.

Some will say that we’re out of the cup and it’s time to concentrate on the saving our future in the league but it’s just the way we went out that grates. The fringe players were given their big chance failed to take it but they’re the ones that we’ll be asking to step up when we start getting injuries mounting up. Sadly we’ll be needing a bit more quality and commitment from them if we have any hope of doing that.

FT: 1 – 0

Goal for Peterborough Sports: Gash 93

The Harriers Online MotM is: Tom Palmer

Talk about the game here

Latest table and stats here

Peterborough Sports	Goals	Subs	Time	Cards
Crook
Alban-Jones
Ahui
Fryatt
Fox
Gash
Fowkes			65
McCammon
Felix
Jarvis			85
McAuley			92
Subs:
Elsom
Johnson			92
Lawlor			85
Tootle
Nicholson
Miles
Overton			65
Harriers	Goals	Subs	Time	Cards
Palmer
Penny
Richards
Oxlade-Chamberlain
Pearce
Harper-Bailey
Brown			46
Bellis			59
Omotayo
Lissimore
Hesketh			69
Subs:
Dibble
Morgan-Smith			59
Hemmings			69
Lambert
Byrne			46
Hall
Referee:
Mr Aaron Bannister
Wakefield