| Venue: Aggborough Date: 16-08-22 Harriers 1 Curzon Ashton 2 Att: 2008 (away fans: 11) |
Reds lose out to clinical Curzon
Report: Dan Harper
The Harriers fell to their first defeat of the season in what was a dismal showing, in horrible conditions, at Aggborough to a clinical Curzon Ashton side who took their chances to edge a poor-performing home side.
This would be the first game that we would see the new floodlights in action (which were noticeably brighter) that were funded by the famous FA Cup run last season, however, despite the obvious stronger shining lights this would arguably not be the same on the pitch and the tone would be set from minute one.
There was no chance of note for either the home side or the Manchester based side until the twenty fifth minute mark when a ball across the Harriers box managed to evade every defender leaving Will Hayhurst, for the visitors, to tuck the ball away past Tom Palmer at the far post.
The Harriers did, to an extent, respond to the wake-up call from the travelling side when in the twenty eighth minute Nathaniel Knight-Percival rose to meet a delivery however he could only head it down the throat of the Ashton ‘keeper Chris Renshaw. In terms of the Aggborough outfit’s first big chance of note it took until just before halftime, the forty first minute to be precise, when Tom Owen-Evans, one of the new men from Hereford FC, shot at goal from a slight angle leaving it to just skim past Renshaw’s post and wide.
Harriers headed into the break a goal down.
HT: 0 – 1
What met the two sides in the second half was to put it lightly, awful conditions. Torrential rain met the Aggborough turf and made things difficult for the two sides. It would be the home side that came out with the sense of urgency, which was lacking for the best part of the first period, but we still could not break through the ever-growing Curzon resistance.
In the sixty eighth minute, just five minutes after Ethan Freemantle came on for the departing Nathan Lowe, the away side extended their advantage through controversy as Knight-Percival would be blocked leaving him out of position after a Harriers attempt at an attack and Devon Matthews then tucked away a free header past a helpless Palmer.
The Harriers did, to their credit, strike back in the seventy sixth minute as Gabby Rogers made an instant impact after coming on two minutes prior for Owen-Evans. He supplied a cross which was brilliantly met by Freemantle, who would tower above his man, to put a header into the top corner past the stretching Renshaw.
The comeback was nearly complete three minutes later. Freemantle keeping the ball in play he looped the ball over Renshaw before it struck the crossbar leaving the Harriers fans left to imagine what could have been.
With our aims of the title, defeats and lacklustre performances like this will go no way to aiding that cause. Harriers will aim to rectify things when they travel to Bradford Park Avenue on Saturday 20th August and hopefully come back with three points.
FT: 1 – 2
Goal for Harriers: Freemantle 75
Goals for Curzon Ashton: Hayhurst 24, Matthews 66
The Harriers Online MotM is: Shane Byrne
Talk about the game here
Latest table and stats here
| Harriers | Goals | Subs | Time | Cards |
| Palmer | ||||
| Foulkes |  | |||
| C Richards | ||||
| Knight-Percival | | |||
| Pearce | ||||
| Byrne | ||||
| Owen-Evans |  | 73 | | |
| N Lowe |  | 62 | ||
| Brown | ||||
| Hemmings | ||||
| Ceesay | ||||
| Subs: | ||||
| Leak | ||||
| Martin | ||||
| Freemantle |  |  | 62 | |
| Margetson | ||||
| Rogers |  | 73 | ||
| Curzon Ashton | Goals | Subs | Time | Cards |
| Renshaw | ||||
| J Richards | ||||
| Hampson | ||||
| Poscha | | |||
| Matthews | | |||
| Mahon | ||||
| Hall | ||||
| Walker | | |||
| Peers | | |||
| Hancock | | 84 | ||
| Hayhurst | | |||
| Subs: | ||||
| Waring | | 84 | ||
| Ollerenshaw | ||||
| Dimaio | ||||
| B Lowe | ||||
| Hobson | ||||
| Referee: | ||||
| Mr Matthew Scholes | ||||
| Telford | ||||