27-12-19 – Preview – Brackley Town Vs Kidderminster Harriers

On the back of that brilliant Boxing Day home win against Hereford FC the Harriers have a more formidable task tomorrow when we go across country to the Northamptonshire border to take on high flying Brackley Town. Their game at Kettering Town yesterday was called off due to a waterlogged Latimer Park so their fresher legs could be an advantage to them.

Two goals for Ollie Shenton and the third goal of three for Ashley Hemmings gave us a comfortable win against the Bulls who, frankly, were very poor. We won’t find that to be the case with Brackley though. Sitting in fifth place in the table (they were fourth before their game was called off and Chester had thrashed Southport) they have possibly the best defence and attack in the division with a goal average of +28, ten better than table topping Kings Lynn Town. At home this season they’ve scored twenty four goals and conceded just four. 

For a side that have never beaten Brackley at St James Park that isn’t music to our struggling ears.

We’ll need to be on top of our game defensively and that does seem to be improving under new manager Jimmy Shan. We will have Ryan Johnson available for the game even though he got sent off yesterday for a dubious second yellow card. Also back in are Ed Williams and Richard Peniket after they made their returns from injury during the second half while we might have to wait a little longer for Declan Weeks and Ashley Chambers to recover from theirs.

Brackley have a very small squad – that proves you don’t need big squads to achieve anything – but will be without the on loan Wes York after he got injured at Guiseley at the start of the month. York is on loan from, err, York until January.

There are just two former Harriers at Brackley now. Danny Lewis has been there a long time while Kelvin Langmead joined them at the start of the season from Harrogate Town. He seems to be down the pecking order in recent weeks since Thierry Audel made the centre half slot his own and spends most of his time on the bench.

As mentioned already we’ll need to be on top of our game and if we were to come back from there with a point it’ll be seen as a good result for us. We can only hope and pray.

Photo © KHFC

Teams:

Harriers from:

Mannion, Palmer, Mountjoy, Davidson, Higginson, Johnson, Moyo, D Lowth, R Williams, Prosser, Weeks, Taylor-Randle, Scott, Butterfield, Shenton, Austin, Chambers, Fuller, E Williams, Freemantle, S Lowth, White, Peniket, Diau, Hemmings.

Brackley Town from:

Lewis, Worby, Dean, Myles, Murombedzi, Franklin, Audel, Noon, Langmead, Armson, Lowe, Walker, Byrne, Smith, Baker, Fairlamb, Ndlovu, Holman, York, Daire.

Referee: Mr Daniel Locker. Liverpool

Talk about the game here

Links to Brackley Town websites here

Find Pubs around Kidderminster here