Previews 2022-23

National North – Play off final Date: 14-05-23 Match preview Vs Brackley Town Venue: St James Park Kick off: 15:30hrs Preview: Phil Lench They don’t get much bigger than this do they? Tomorrow we will hopefully get our just rewards for this topsy turvy season by beating Brackley Town in the National North play off final. Whoever would have thought we’d be at this stage a few months ago with a team failing to perform week in week out and the fans calling for the head of our management duo, Russ Penn and Jimmy O’Connor. Now, if we win tomorrow, they’ll be carried aloft through the ticker tape strewn streets of Kidderminster in celebration of our return to the top

National North – Play off semi-final Date: 07-05-23 Match preview Vs Kings Lynn Town Venue: The Walks Kick off: 12:30hrs Preview: Phil Lench Tomorrows play off semi final at Kings Lynn Town is going to be the Harriers most important game of the season. It may still not be the most important though because we might have the final to look forward to on Sunday May 14th. Last Tuesday we stood up to the bully boy tactics of Alfreton Town in the eliminating stage and, again, it was an early goal from Amari Morgan-Smith that gave us a lead that we kept until the ninety fifth minute. The scenes at the end from the disputed 921 Harriers fans (definitely more

National North – Play off eliminator Date: 02-05-23 Match preview Vs Alfreton Town Venue: North Street Kick off: 19:45hrs Preview: Phil Lench As unbelievable as it seems the Harriers will be off to Alfreton Town tomorrow evening for this Play-off Eliminator game earned by beating Kettering Town 3-0 on Saturday afternoon. The result put us into sixth place in the table but, sadly, saw the result confirm relegation for the Poppies. Alfreton battled out a 1-1 draw with Brackley Town to finish in fifth place but with three goals better than us. Finishing in seventh place were Gloucester City who will be playing at Brackley on Wednesday evening. City somehow came from 3-1 down to finally beat Chorley FC 4-3

Date: 29-04-23 Match preview Vs Kettering Town Venue: Aggborough Kick off: 15:00hrs Preview: Phil Lench Somehow the Harriers are tantalisingly close to this seasons play-off finals and we have just one more game to go and make a concerted effort getting over the line. It won’t all be down to us though because there are other sides also dreaming of getting into the final day placings too. I can’t list all of the permutations available but outside the cut off line we find (in this order) Chorley FC, Harriers, Gloucester City, Curzon Ashton, Spennymoor Town and Darlington FC while possibly dropping out, if they lose, we have Buxton FC and Scarborough Athletic. It’s going to be nail-biting for all those

Date: 22-04-23 Match preview Vs Southport Venue: Haig Avenue Kick off: 15:00hrs Preview: Phil Lench We’re now into the final days of the normal season and it’s a trip up to sunny Southport that awaits us in this the penultimate game. The season ‘ends’ at home to Kettering Town next Saturday and we need maximum points from both games to give us an outside chance of reaching the play off stages. We had some help on Tuesday when results went our way after Curzon Ashton beat Darlington to remove them from the top seven temporarily but at the same time also move Curzon closer to them. Alfreton Town got a draw at Banbury Utd to keep them in the play-offs.

Date: 15-04-23 Match preview Vs AFC Telford Utd Venue: Aggborough Kick off: 15:00hrs Preview: Phil Lench Sadly we’ll be saying goodbye to a good friend, hopefully fleetingly, when near neighbours AFC Telford Utd come to Aggborough on their farewell tour now that their relegation was confirmed last week. Having spent most of the season at the foot of the table the axe finally fell when Farsley Celtic beat Brackley Town on the 4th of April. Ironically Telford went to Brackley last Friday and won 1-2. Ironic again for the fact that Telfords manager Kevin Wilkin was sacked by Brackley in September and his replacement, Roger Johnson, was himself sacked following this defeat. We went to Telford, and won, in November

Date: 10-04-23 Match preview Vs AFC Fylde Venue: Mill Farm Kick off: 15:00hrs Preview: Phil Lench Two wins in a row for the Harriers has given the fans something of a new found belief in the team. We’re either easy to please or we have a reason to be pleased and that could be down to the long awaited re-appearance of Joe Leesley to the starting eleven. It was his set pieces that gave us the 1-0 win at Farsley Celtic a week back and on Friday it was his command of the game that helped us on our way to yet another 1-0 win at home to Buxton FC. Yes, that’s our only problem at the moment in scoring

Date: 07-04-23 Match preview Vs Buxton FC Venue: Aggborough Kick off: 15:00hrs Preview: Phil Lench We move into the Easter weekend with the first game tomorrow, Good Friday, coming up against Buxton FC. This is their first season at this level and we met them last September at their ground high in the Derbyshire hills where we came away with a 1-1 draw thanks to the now departed Yusifu Ceesay. It was in the first half of that game that we lost three players to injury with Joe Foulkes, Nathaniel Knight-Percival and Ethan Freemantle all getting long term injuries. Neither NKP or Freemantle will be available to us tomorrow with the former serving the final game of his four game