13-09-24. Kidderminster Harriers Vs Leek Town. FA Cup 2nd Qual Rd. Match preview

Preview:Phil Lench

We have a respite from the league tomorrow when we get underway in this seasons FA Cup. Our first opponents are Leek Town, a club that we have played before in the 1980’s and 90’s with our last meeting coming back in January 1999.

Town play a level below us in the Northern Premier League – Premier Division and currently sit in seventeenth place having played eight games but winning only two of them, drawing two and losing the remainder. The cup is a different matter though and they’ll be coming to Aggborough fired up and thinking they can do a bit of giant killing.

The only players in their squad that we have any real knowledge of are Brendon Daniels who had time with AFC Telford Utd and Olly Shenton who played for us on loan from Stoke City back in the 2019-20 season and turned out twenty three times and scoring three goals during his spell with us. Olly joined Leek from Chorley FC last season.

We bought in a loan defender from Mansfield Town yesterday. George Cooper has come in as cover for the injured Alex Penny and Paul Downing so will possibly get a start alongside Reiss McNally. He’s previously played for Kettering Town and has played against us four times, two of those at Aggborough. I don’t recall much about him though 🙂

We have another injury in addition to the two mentioned previously. Ben Beresford is still missing with his hamstring injury and it’ll be a while before we see him again. We also have an enforced absence with Ashley Hemmings out serving his one match ban picked up in the Chester FC game a few weeks back. Thankfully it’s just the one game.

We saw the return of Amari Morgan-Smith at Chorley last Saturday but it wasn’t the best return for him being on the losing side. We took an early lead, once again, but failed to build on that goal and were suspect defensively running out defeated 2-1.

For this game we could see a few changes with fringe players getting a look in. Jack Lambert will surely replace Hemmo while Maz Kouhyar and Caleb Richards could be rested to the bench to give game time to Noah Rubio and Reece Devine.

The winners of the game will receive £3375 and the losing team will pick up £1125. We’ll be getting the three grand then. Hopefully! 

Photo © KHFC

Referee: Mr Matthew Jackson. 

Talk about the game here

Links to Leek Town websites here

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