Match preview Vs Spennymoor Town Venue: Aggborough Date: 30-10-21 Kick off: 15:00hrs

29-10-21 - Preview - Kidderminster Harriers Vs Spennymoor Town

Preview: Phil Lench

Hot on the heels of that hard won point at Chorley FC on Tuesday evening the Harriers now have to face yet another highly placed team in Spennymoor Town. It’ll be good to see the back of playing these top six sides for a while and start to play more lower down clubs like Bradford (PA) more often.

Geraldo Bajrami
Geraldo Bajrami
Hoping he’ll miss the Curzon game rather than the FA Cup game against Grimsby

That game at Chorley was bad and good. Bad due to the controversial decision to send off Geraldo Bajrami following two fairly innocuous yellow cards awarded by the referee who seemed to have been promoted far above his level. Good because we responded in the best way possible to take the lead through, yet another, quality strike from Ashley Hemmings. Sadly our ten men couldn’t hold onto the lead and Chorley drew level towards the end of the game although Sammy Austin could have stole the points if his late, late shot had gone in.

We now face up to a Spennymoor side that suffered defeat at AFC Fylde the same evening. They stayed in third place in the table – five places in front of us – following the defeat but are still going strong. That defeat ended a five game run of wins and draws. 

Team news re: injuries is shown in more detail down below in our new feature provided by Harriershane but basically they’ll be without James Curtis, Mark Anderson and Carl Magnay while Stephen Thompson may be missing through suspension. He was sent off on 5th October and appears to have missed two games so far but the Moors website does not say how long his suspension was for in the first place and the FA no longer reports suspensions on their website.

Before their game at Fylde they signed the ex Hartlepool defender Aaron Cunningham and there could still be another new face coming in due to their thin squad.

We’ll still have Bajrami in the side because the one match ban doesn’t start until seven days have passed. Hopefully, to ensure he’s available for the FA Cup game against Grimsby Town next Saturday, he’ll miss the Tuesday evening game at Curzon Ashton but that depends on the COVID situation there seeing as their game at AFC Telford Utd tomorrow has already been called off.

We have no new injuries following Tuesday – still just Joe Foulkes, Cliff Moyo and Lewis Montrose – but we have strengthened in the past two weeks with the arrival of Elliot Bonds and Nick Clayton-Phillips but we could still do with a defender to help out covering for our stretched defensive group. 

The Moors have a former Harrier in their ranks and he’s one that most of us will only have seen warming up the goalkeeper before a game. Dale Eve was with us from November 2017 until May 2018 and then he vanished for a while. He then resurfaced at Spennymoor and has now become their number one keeper giving him, probably, his longest run between the sticks since he was at Congleton Town FC a long time ago.

Hopefully this forecasted bad weather takes a break tomorrow afternoon and we can put this poor run of results against higher in the table clubs to bed with another resounding win a la Bradford.

Photo © KHFC


Teams:

Harriers from:

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

Spennymoor Town from:

Eve, Flatters, Cunningham, Tait, Lufudu, Chandler, Hall, Kennedy, Moké, Ramshaw, Hindson, Patterson, McClean, Abbott, Taylor, Thompson, Mulhearn. 

Referee: Mr Claudio Gavillucci. The Wirral.


Shanes Opposition Stats Pack:

Away from home in the league: P4 W2 (Boston 3-2, Hereford 2-0) L2 (Leamington 2-1, Fylde 2-0)

Goals (all competitions): Glen Taylor – 11, Rob Ramshaw, Brad Abbot – 4, Scott McLean – 2, Ryan Hall – 1

In the league Tuesdays defeat at Fylde ended a five game unbeaten run (W4 D1) but that was punctuated with the FA Cup loss to Southport on 5th October.

They’ve employed 5-3-2 with McLean and Hall the wing backs whilst John Lufudu has been injured, he’s usually in for Hall.

The Squad (appearances are starts + sub, includes both league and FAC):

Goalkeepers: Dale Eve (P14, Conceded 17, faced 3 penalties conceding once), Harry Flatters (P0)

Defence: Aaron Cunningham (P1) James Curtis (P11, injured) John Lufudu (P7+2, last season with Guiseley) Carl Magnay (P11, injured) Joe Tait (P14)

Midfield: Brad Abbott (P13, 4 goals, ex Boston) Mark Anderson (P1+2, injured) Jamie Chandler (P13, 1 goal) Ryan Hall (P6+4, 1 goal) Jason Kennedy (player/coach, P4+1) Adriano Moké (P12+1) Rob Ramshaw (P14, 4 goals) Scott McLean (P14, 2 goals. I have him as an attacker but evidently a utility player capable of being up top/out wide/wing back)

Attack: Frank Mulhern (P2+2) Glen Taylor (P14, 11 goals, scored 2 out of 3 penalties) Stephen Thompson (P2+4, potentially suspended)


Talk about the game here

Links to Spennymoor Town websites here

Find Pubs around Kidderminster here


Previous games against Spennymoor Town
Played: 6Won: 1Drew: 3Lost: 2
DateH/AComp:ScoreGoalsAtt: (away)
18-01-2020HNational North1 – 1Chambers 1259 (46)
28-09-2019ANational North2 – 1Chambers1036 (42)
16-03-2019HNational North2 – 1Chambers 21436 (36)
08-01-2019ANational North2 – 1Phillips575 (29)
17-04-2018ANational North1 – 1N’Gwatala415 (80)
21-10-2017HNational North2 – 2McQuilkin, Brown1406 (28)