22-10-21 – Preview – Kidderminster Harriers Vs Bradford (Park Avenue) AFC

Preview: Phil Lench

The Harriers take on struggling Bradford (Park Avenue) AFC tomorrow and they’ll be wanting to put this run of three league defeats to an end. With Bradford being the lowest placed team – fourth from the bottom – that we have faced in recent weeks then the chances of those three points must be strong. Losses at home to Gateshead and Brackley Town were split with a defeat at AFC Fylde that saw us drop from third in the table all the way down to eleventh.

To that end the Harriers manager, Russ Penn, bought in a midfielder on a short term loan from Cheltenham Town on Wednesday. Elliot Bonds has come in as primarily cover for Lewis Montrose and Keziah Martin but he may find himself in the starting line-up if he’s lucky. He’s returning from a serious injury that has seen him only play three games so far this season so he may have to wait.

Last week we won in the FA Cup at Bedfont Sports to earn ourselves a ‘plum tie’ 1st round game at home to Grimsby Town in a few weeks time. We didn’t pick up any more injuries at Heathrow Airport so should be able to play an unchanged team again (unless Bonds does start that is). Amari Morgan-Smith scored the only goal of the game and that gave him the honour of scoring all three of his goals this season in the FA Cup games. He just needs to start scoring some league goals now.

Bradfords season isn’t going too well with a bad setback coming early on with the terrible injury to midfielder Jake Hibbs. He was badly tackled in a game at Chorley FC and ended up with a double fracture of his leg. The game was abandoned after a hour waiting for him to receive treatment from the paramedics.

Apart from the Hibbs injury they could also be without Jordan Windass, Oli Johnson, Ryan Toulson and Matty Downing with injuries although Lucas Odunston returned from an ankle injury to play in a local cup game during the week. With the injury situation their manager, Mark Bower, told the local press today that he was looking to bring in some loan players before the game.

With all the cup victories in recent weeks, and that 1st round game to look forward to, it’s easy to forget that we aren’t doing all that well in the league and that’s where it matters.

Time to put things right and get us back in the mix. 

Photo © CTFC

Teams:

Harriers from:

Simpson, Emery, Richards, Cameron, Penny, Bajrami, Foulkes, Lowe, Austin, Montrose, Bonds, Lissimore, Carrington, Bell, Martin, Freemantle, Tolley, Hemmings, Morgan-Smith, White, Sterling-James.

Bradford (PA) from:

Fawcett, Saltmer, Windass, Havern, Ross, Downing, Lund, Toulson, Dockerty, Marriott, Odunston, Clee, Richman, Nowakoski, Francis, Mottley-Henry, Rawson, Johnson, Guilfoyle, Bolton. 

Referee: Mr Dean Watson. Lancashire

Talk about the game here

Links to Bradford (PA) websites here

Find Pubs around Kidderminster here