| Date: 31-01-23 Match preview Vs Blyth Spartans Venue: Aggborough Kick off: 19:45hrs |
Preview: Phil Lench
The Harriers are kind of buoyant following two wins on the road at Curzon Ashton and Peterborough Sports but it’s at home that our form needs to improve, and improve quickly. Although we’re unbeaten at Aggborough for quite a while now we have still failed to win a home game since October when we beat Chorley FC. This game against strugglers Blyth Spartans is one that we have to win otherwise very soon we’ll be seeing our attendance figures begin to drop.
hoping to make his debut
Our game at Sports on Saturday saw a set piece brace from Ashley Hemmings and that in itself is a rare occurrence. We’ve not seen a good free kick since Omari Sterling-James was with us and our last penalty came against Leamington FC in the second game of the season and Ashley missed that one. Having both in one game was a bit of a bonus then.
Blyth were at home to Buxton FC on Saturday and earned the wrath of manager Graham Fenton when they crumbled 3-0 against their fellow strugglers. A proper six pointer that backfired badly.
They’ll now be fired up enough to possibly give us a problem so we’ll need to be on our game. Not that our team should need to be told that anyway.
They’ll be without a fair few injured players with Nathan Buddle, Lewis McNall, Michael Liddle, Rhys Evans, JJ O’Donnell and Michael Richardson while Nicky Deverdics will be seeing out the last of his three match ban.
Also a few weeks back Alex Nicholson retired through injury so they’ve had to bring in a load of new signings. Ryan Barrett from Inverness Caledonian Thistle, the former AFC Wimbledon striker Troy Chiabi, striker Sam Hodgson on loan from South Shields and midfielder Connor Pani on loan from Gateshead are all new arrivals.
We’ll be missing Joe Foulkes, Caleb Richards for a while and Joe Leesley long term. We might also see a first start for new keeper Christian Dibble too although Tom Palmer didn’t do much wrong on Saturday.
Against Peterborough Sports we recorded our first double of the season and hopefully this game tomorrow evening will be our second having already beaten them on the opening day of the season. Do that and our corner might finally be turning.
Photo © BBC
Teams:
Harriers from:
Palmer, Dibble, Emery, Penny, Richards, Knight-Percival, McNally, Pearce, Margetson, Byrne, Brown, Lissimore, Owen-Evans, Hall, Martin, McGlynn, Freemantle, Bearne, Hemmings, Morgan-Smith.
Blyth Spartans from:
Mitchell, Dopson, Elsdon, Lees, Buddle, Liddle, Barrett, Evans, Bodenham, Barlow, Round, Pani, Deverdics, Gillies, O’Donnell, Hickey, Richardson, McGowan, Cornish, Main, McNall, Hodgson, Chiabi, Walker.
Referee: Mr Neil Pratt. Cheltenham
Talk about the game here
Links to Blyth Spartans websites here
Find Pubs around Kidderminster here
| Previous games against Blyth Spartans | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Played: 12Won: 7Drew: 3Lost: 2 | |||||
| Results marked (v) are for information only following the season being made null & void in 2021 due to the pandemic | |||||
| Date | H/A | Comp: | Score | Goals | Att: (away) |
| 06-08-2022 | A | National North | 0 – 1 | Hemmings | 698 (50) |
| 23-04-2022 | A | National North | 1 – 1 | Morgan-Smith | 671 (50) |
| 21-08-2021 | H | National North | 3 – 0 | Freemantle, Austin, Hemmings, | 1462 (47) |
| 31-10-2020 | H | National North | 2 – 0 (v) | Hemmings, Taylor | 0000 |
| 04-01-2020 | H | National North | 0 – 1 | 1532 (35) | |
| 07-09-2019 | A | National North | 1 – 1 | Prosser | 796 (50) |
| 23-02-2019 | A | National North | 3 – 3 | Horsfall, Ironside, Williams | 705 (50) |
| 08-09-2018 | H | National North | 3 – 1 | Chambers, Horsfall, Williams | 1570 (27) |
| 07-04-2018 | A | National North | 1 – 2 | Croasdale, Sonupè | 738 (100) |
| 23-09-2017 | H | National North | 5 – 4 | Brown, Pearson 2, Sonupè, Wright | 1524 (71) |
| 25-10-1997 | A | FA Cup 4th qual rd | 2 – 1 | Casey | 656 |
| 06-02-1982 | H | FA Trophy 2nd rd | 2 – 1 | Mullen 2 | 1182 |