Match report Vs Farsley Celtic FC Venue: The Citadel Date: 26-02-22 Att: 605 (away fans: 300)

26-02-22 - Report - Farsley Celtic FC 2 Kidderminster Harriers 1

The Harriers fail at Farsley

Report: Harriershane

The Harriers travelled up to Farsley Celtics ‘The Citadel’ armed with a convoy of coaches looking to keep the pressure on at the top of the table but were sent packing by the National League North’s basement side in a game that saw one of the most bizarre refereeing performances I have ever witnessed for both sides.

Russ Penn opted to shuffle the pack slightly for this game with Mark Carrington dropping to the bench alongside Omari Sterling-James while Geraldo Bajrami and Devonte Redmond returned to the starting eleven.

The opening exchanges yielded two clear points; Harriers would need to work hard to play their brand of football on a poor pitch and the hosts would be direct and combative. Harriers abandoned their preferred way of playing quite quickly, looking to beat the strugglers at their own direct game. It took ten minutes for the first chance to present itself and when it did so, it fell to the home side with Jimmy Spencer heading Will Hayhurst’s cross wide.

Match action was at a premium, with a pair of Farsley corners the most notable action before the deadlock was broken. A ball forward looked to be dealt with by Caleb Richards but the ball ricocheted off his shin and into the path of Jimmy Spencer, who fired a good effort hard and low past the despairing dive of Luke Simpson to give the Celts the lead and the incentive to repeat their timewasting tricks from their visit to Aggborough the other week.

After half an hour they should’ve doubled their lead as another Hayhurst delivery caused problems, this time finding Jerome Greaves (a man whose choice of board in the swimming pool is the bottom one) who could only find the inside of the post before Lewis Montrose hacked the ball clear.

It took until the thirty third minute for Harriers to fashion a chance worthy of the name and it came on the counter attack in a rare passage of play where the ball was moved quickly and on the deck for the most part. Unfortunately Sam Austin’s effort lacked any real sting and was comfortably saved by Kyle Trenerry.

The first of many cards was issued to Luke Parkin moments later before Amari Morgan-Smith was shown one, for discussing an issue, just before the break to level up the card count. The score was levelled up just before the break as well as a ball over the top found Morgan-Smith racing onto it. Trenerry advanced out of his area to deal with it but his touch was not true, allowing Morgan-Smith to nip in and round him, leaving the goalkeeper no option but to bring the forward down just inside the area with the goal at his mercy before being rightly booked for his transgression.

Had the foul been outside the box, he would’ve walked due to the double jeopardy ruling, so on this occasion the referee got it right.

Ash Hemmings strolled up to the ball in his own inimitable fashion and rolled the ball past Trenerry in front of the Harriers fans who breathed a collective sigh of relief. The last action of the half came from a Farsley free kick which was dealt with after Bajrami had been booked.

HT: 1 – 1. Yellow card count 2-2

The second half started the same way as the first with the ball seemingly never in play and scrappy not even coming close to describing the action, if you could call it that. It took nearly fifteen minutes for anything to happen when Spencer sent another shot goalwards.

Even the referee couldn’t find any way of getting involved or getting his cards out again, although I’m sure he has a sore throat this morning from the number of unnecessary lectures he delivered throughout. He wouldn’t wait too much longer for his slice of the action though, booking Chris Atkinson on the hour mark before gifting Celtic a penalty.

Adam Clayton’s cross from inside the Harriers box looked to have been blocked at close quarters by Nathan Cameron, but it was adjudged to have hit his arm and so the referee gleefully pointed to the spot. Hayhurst duly dispatched the spot kick to restore the home advantage.

Minutes later it was almost three as Atkinson picked out Greaves who sent a volley goalwards from close range forcing Simpson into an acrobatic save before the Harriers keeper had to grab the ball to stop it spiralling into the goal.

With twenty minutes to go Joe Foulkes was introduced in place of Alex Penny who limped off injured. The Farsley manager, Russ Wilcox, was then sent to the stands for a second yellow card after a blatant piece of timewasting, throwing the ball over the dugout when a Harriers throw in was given.

Looking for a slice of Sterling magic, Omari was introduced with a quarter of an hour left in place of Devonte Redmond before a rare chance presented itself for Harriers with Austin cutting inside but the shot was harmlessly off target.

Referee Aspinall got back into the action, channelling his inner Hulk Hogan in calling over the previously booked Atkinson – now converted to a red card – and Lewis Butroid for more card giving shenanigans. When the free kick was finally allowed to be taken Trenerry was called upon to save from Keith Lowe’s header.

As eight minutes of injury time was announced the sides were levelled numerically as Foulkes picked up his second yellow card – again converted to a red. The Harriers failed to equalise and so slumped to defeat on a day where AFC Telford Utd held Gateshead to a draw and Brackley Town swept Bradford PA to the side with a second half trilogy of goals.

FT: 2 – 1. Yellow card count 4-3. Red card count 1-1


Goals for Farsley Celtic: Spencer 22, Hayhurst 66 (pen)

Goal for Harriers: Hemmings 46+1 (pen)



The Harriers Online MotM is: The refs whistle for not breaking, his pen for not running out of ink but apart from that you must be joking. 

Talk about the game here

Latest table and stats here


Farsley Celtic AFCGoalsSubsTimeCards
Trenerry   
Digie    
Hayhurst   
Turner    
Walker    
Clayton    
Butroid   
Atkinson   
Spencer   
Greaves 82 
Parkin 88
 
Subs: 
Westcarr    
Syers 88 
Grafton 82 
Vaughan    
Sutton    
 
HarriersGoalsSubsTimeCards
Simpson    
Penny 70 
Richards    
Cameron    
Lowe    
Montrose    
Austin    
Bajrami   
Morgan-Smith   
Hemmings62 
Redmond 75 
 
Subs: 
Carrington    
Sterling-James 75 
Foulkes 70
Freemantle 62 
White    
 
Referee: 
Mr Richard Aspinall
Blackpool