Match report Vs Gateshead Venue: Aggborough Date: 11-09-21 Att: 1571 (away fans: 25)

11-09-21 - Report - Kidderminster Harriers 2 Gateshead 3

The Harriers didn’t take Heed

Report: Phil Lench

Kidderminster Harriers unbeaten run came to an end today at the hands of Gateshead. The damage was done within the first thirty minutes when defensive errors allowed Macauley Langstaff to breakthrough Jamie Vardy style and bear down on goal with only Luke Simpson to beat. We pulled a goal back just before halftime through Joe Foulkes but soon after the second half started the Heed regained the two goal margin once more.

All three were down to defensive errors and it took until the third goal for Russ Penn to take heed and remove Keith Lowe from the field of play and replace him with the more mobile Alex Penny in an effort to stem the flow. Ashley Hemmings narrowed the gap once more but no amount of battling was going to work against a side intent of wasting time and a referee that was making it up as he went along.

We started the game as expected without Mark Carrington, serving a three match ban, and Ethan Freemantle with a knee injury. We weren’t expecting to be without Nathan Cameron though and Lowe stepped into his place when it should really have been Penny from the start. Amari Morgan-Smith returned to the side for the first time since last January due to his extended ban for racial reasons. and Lewis Montrose came in for Carrington.

Gateshead started the game like a whirlwind and immediately we were struggling to cope as they targeted Lowe continually. After six minutes Langstaff wriggled through the defensive wall and, looking offside, fired the ball from the edge of the area beyond the rooted Simpson.

His second came twenty minutes later and was an almost carbon copy except that a too soft ball from Joe Foulkes to a team mate was pounced on by Greg Olley who played in the ex York City man to repeat the exercise accomplished earlier.

We tried to get back into the game but the early timewasting saw to that as Gateshead snuffed out any real threat that we could muster. It wasn’t until seconds before the break that Foulkes, on the far post, got up to a floated in cross and nodded the ball downwards into the net. Not bad for a little guy.   

HT: 1 – 2

The second half started with great promise following that goal but the industry was soon gone when some kind of circus trickery took effect and the ball pinged and ponged in front of Simpson, first going one way and then the other until it took a deflection off Geraldo Bajrami and into the path of Paul Blackett who fired home even though Simpson had still managed to get a hand to it.

It looked like it was all over to the fans as we tried hard to get through their defence without much luck. Sammy Austin was getting no joy from the amount of attention he was getting – as we saw at Guiseley last Saturday – and found it hard to get time on the ball even though he was still playing out of his skin. Ashley Hemmings and Omari Sterling-James were both having quiet games and Morgan-Smith looked out of match practise which was no surprise really.

It was still Sterling and Hemmings that gave us a glimmer of hope though when the formers cross ball found the head of the latter who planted the ball beyond the fairly good Jacob Chapman in goal for the visitors.

Our third goal was not going to come though as Gatesheads spoiling tactics took over and even though the referee penalised them with a raft of yellow cards it didn’t seem to stop them and along with a packed defence it was always going to be hard to achieve that all important third goal that would, at least, have saved our face.

With time running out we saw the unusual occurrence of both keepers getting booked: Chapman for time wasting and Simpson for handling the ball outside of the box.

It was a game that never produced a direct chance on goal for us, our first defeat of the season and a drop down two places in the table to fifth. We have a break from all this next week as we travel the short distance to IKEA, sorry Junction 9 and 10 at Willenhall, to play an FA Cup game at Sporting Khalsa. Let’s just hope we do better than in previous seasons losing out to the likes of Stourbridge FC, Stafford Rangers and Alvechurch at the first attempt.

FT: 2 – 3


Goals for Harriers: Foulkes 44, Hemmings 61

Goals for Gateshead: Langstaff 6, 25, Blackett 50



The Harriers Online MotM is: Geraldo Bajrami

Talk about the game here

Latest table and stats here


HarriersGoalsSubsTimeCards
Simpson   
Foulkes   
Richards    
Bajrami    
Lowe 62 
Montrose    
Austin    
Martin    
Morgan-Smith 78 
Hemmings   
Sterling-James    
 
Subs: 
Emery    
Penny 62 
Bell 78 
Lissimore    
White    
 
GatesheadGoalsSubsTimeCards
Chapman   
Nicholson   
Tinkler   
Ward 66 
Storey    
Williamson    
Langstaff   
Bailey    
Blackett59 
Olley   
Campbell   
 
Subs: 
Guthrie    
Scott 59 
Wombwell    
Jacob 66 
     
 
Referee: 
Mr Peter Shacklady
Southport