Reports 2022-23

National North – Play off final Venue: St James Park Date: 14-05-23 Brackley Town 0 Harriers 2 Att: 3015 (away fans: 700) The ghost of the Flash finally laid to rest Report: Phil Lench After seven long seasons the Harriers are finally back at the very top of non-league football after finally getting a, valid, win at Brackley Town. Two goals from Ashley Hemmings gave us the promotion back to a National League that we left seven years ago following the criminal management of the club by our former chairman. We now have the privilege of setting horns against the likes of Southend Utd, Chesterfield and Aldershot once again instead of Southport, Chester FC and Alfreton Town. No more bloody

National North – Play off semi-final Venue: The Walks Date: 07-05-23 Kings Lynn Town 1 Harriers 4 Att: 3002 (away fans: 755) Harriers ruin the Kings weekend and surge into the play off final Report: Harriershane After Tuesday night’s success at Alfreton Town the Harriers were rewarded with a near 300 mile round trip to Norfolk where they were to take on King’s Lynn Town in a 12.30pm Sunday kick off. Even given the nightmarish time and distance Harriers fans still travelled in significant numbers to support an unchanged side that put paid to Lynn Chairman Stephen Cleeve’s plan to “invite you to next week’s coronation ceremony”. Harriers’ penchant for starting early came to the fore once again with Amari

National North – Play off eliminator Venue: North Street Date: 02-05-23 Alfreton Town 0 Harriers 1 Att: tba (away fans: tba) Another early goal on the way to promotion Report: Harriershane This report is being written the morning after the night before, and if you’re anything like me then you’re tired, sore, elated, struggling to be productive and looking for unethical ways to get out of work/family duties to get to Kings Lynn on Sunday. Maybe I’m just old… Spare a thought then, for how the warriors in blue must be feeling physically this morning after withstanding a 96 minute aerial assault from an Alfreton Town side bewildered that their tactics weren’t working. Team news was simple enough, an unchanged

Venue: Aggborough Date: 29-04-23 Harriers 3 Kettering Town 0 Att: 3786 (away fans: 283) Harriers cruise into the play-off places Report: Phil Lench The Harriers squeezed into the play-offs with this thumping of Kettering Town and that was enough in itself to relegate a fellow Midland club into step three. Before the game there were so many permutations of teams that could make it into those four available spaces but by the end of the game it was confirmed that it would be Brackley Town, Alfreton Town, Harriers and Gloucester City, in that order, and we’ll be at Alfreton on Tuesday evening for the play-off eliminator. To think that just over a month ago we were in fourteenth place in

Venue: Haig Avenue Date: 22-04-23 Southport 1 Harriers 3 Att: 1080 (away fans: 190) Harriers take it to the wire Report: Phil Lench The Harriers came away from Southport with yet another win under their belts and a better chance of reaching the play-offs than anyone would have thought they would have done some ten games ago when we were struggling to score a goal let alone picking up three points. Todays win was our fifth in a row and it was also the fifth time in a row that we’ve scored our first goal within five minutes if the game starting. Today saw us score in the very first minute for the third time when Ashley Hemmings and Joe

Venue: Aggborough Date: 15-04-23 Harriers 3 AFC Telford Utd 0 Att: 2536 (away fans: 137) This win is dedicated to Waggy * Report: Phil Lench A fourth win in a row for the Harriers was great to see and pushes us tantalisingly closer to the edge of the play-offs but not so good to see was the sad decline of AFC Telford Utd as we saw at first hand why they have been relegated. Games against Telford have always been tough feisty affairs but this, today, was verging on the term known as a non-event. OK we won 3-0 but it didn’t seem all that convincing. In fact a really good team would have put seven past them. Again we

Venue: Mill Farm Date: 10-04-23 AFC Fylde 0 Harriers 2 Att: 1269 (away fans: 100) Harriers cause an upset and could head for the play-offs Report: Phil Lench The Harriers added another three points to their recent results with this third win in a row. Even better it came at a club we never get much joy from, AFC Fylde, and the win also makes it the second time for us this season up there. The first one, in the FA Trophy, was on penalties so some would say it doesn’t count. This one did though. Although the result doesn’t move us up the table it does now give us an outside chance of scraping into the play-offs. With three

Venue: Aggborough Date: 07-04-23 Harriers 1 Buxton FC 0 Att: 2486 (away fans: 98) Early Hemmo goal makes it two in a row Report: Phil Lench A goal from Ashley Hemmings as early as the thirty seventh minute put the Reds into an early lead that, in the end, was enough to see us through to the end of the game and three points. The win was our second in a week, following our victory away at Farsley Celtic last Saturday, and also the first time we’ve collected two wins in a row since the end of January. In a way it’s a shame that we couldn’t have gone on to increase the lead against a useful looking Buxton FC