14-09-18 – Preview – York City Vs Kidderminster Harriers

The Harriers will be facing another difficult encounter tomorrow when they will be facing York City at Bootham Crescent. With City doing better in the league than last season it looks likely to be an interesting encounter and the Reds will, hopefully, return from there with three points in the bag.

In the game there last season Ryan Croasdale scored to give us the lead but that was countered with a disputed free kick that Jon Parkin dispatched beautifully beyond the reach of Brandon Hall. We should have gone on to win the game but despite our best efforts it wasn’t to be. One bonus was that the threat from Parkin was eliminated thanks to a commanding display from Fraser Horsfall in keeping the big man quiet.

Tomorrow we should be at full strength again with the return of Ryan Johnson from international duty with the Northern Ireland U21’s. He played the full ninety minutes in their 2-1 win over Spain U21’s on Tuesday evening. Kennedy Digie covered well in his absence for the Blyth Spartans game last Saturday so would feel disappointed if he had to return to the bench in Johnsons favour.

City’s form this season has been better that previously and at the moment they lie in ninth place, five places below the Harriers. Last time out they drew 1-1  at Hereford FC to give them a five game unbeaten run so not quite matching our eight game unbeaten run. Their game at home to Nuneaton last Saturday was called off due to the international commitments of some Nuneaton players.    

They recently dismissed manager Gary Mills after just five games and have appointed Sam Collins as the caretaker manager. He’s hoping to have a fully fit squad at his disposal with both Sean Newton and Alex Kempster pushing for recalls after injury. Playing for City still are former Harriers Adam Bartlett, Russ Penn and Simon Heslop who now seems to be back in favour following the departure of Mills.

Our leading scorer Ashley Chambers played for City for four seasons from 2010 to 2014 and racked up over a hundred and thirty games while scoring twenty three times for them. He’ll be wanting at least a couple more tomorrow then.

Photo © KHFC

Teams:

Harriers from:

Hall, Palmer, Taylor, Horsfall, O’Connor, Digie, Vaughan, Johnson, Baxendale, Truslove, Weeks, Austin, Wagner, Bradley, Chambers, Daniels, Richards, Williams, Ironside.

York City from:

Bartlett, Whitley, Allen, Bencherif, Ferguson, Griffiths, Rogerson, Law, Newton, Parslow, Tait, Heslop, McAughtrie, Moké, Thompson, Penn, York, Burrow, Kempster, Langstaff, McNaughton, Parkin, Wright.

Referee: Mr Adam Williamson. Durham

Talk about the game here

Links to York City websites here

Find Pubs around Kidderminster here