Harriers v Cheltenham (3rd attempt)

Lights on
By KJ
February 10 2004

Harriers will be looking for a visit from lady luck when they take on Cheltenham tomorrow(10/2/04). The 1st game saw the lights go off and now Harriers need a boost. Lets hope lady luck stops vommiting on our eiderdown.Some good late news though, Dean Keates has signed.

Desperate for luck (&points !)

Harriers are still searching for their 1st win of 2004 as they attempt to finally get the Old Farm derby against Cheltenham under way. Of course this match has already been put off twice, once due to the FA Cup and the 2nd the memorable power failure the other week.

So lets hope its on and we can finally win a game this year. I also hope we are due a bit of luck. Of course our current predicament is not solely down to luck and some of the performances have been unacceptable. Despite this, all of our recent defeats have been by a single goal. Perhaps a thrashing one way or another would help? Of course, if we did get a good win under our belts (currently 2-0 is the best in the league) then some confidence might come out. Or if we were to get mauled (but not tomorrow lads!) then we could realise that major work needs to be done instead of hoping for a change and be close.

Saturday’s defeat to Yeovil leaves us very close to the drop zone and after facing Cheltenham we head for a relegation battle against Southend on Saturday. The Yeovil game was very disappointing. Firstly the display was very poor and to be fair we deserved nothing from the game. Then came the last minute lifeline of a penalty, after John Williams was adjudged to have been tripped in the box. Of course, what followed was very annoying as the Yeovil players delayed the kick by some 4 minutes. I was going to say cheating, well it was. Of course their argument was that it shouldn’t have been a pen in the 1st place. This is when video replays are needed, what’s a 30 seconds delay compared to 4 minutes, and the decision would be correct. The ref totally lost control of the situation and was the standard weak joke official. To be honest I haven’t seen the incident on TV, if I thought anymore about it and ref’s in general I would probably give up watching the game. When the kick was taken, as we know, Muzza’s shot was saved. Then amazingly we got the ball in the net from the resultant corner, only for it to be disallowed. Harriers media man Steve Thomas said he saw the replay and there was nothing wrong with the goal. Something should be done about the ref, Kevin Wright but nothing will be. The only way I can deal with refs these days, is to hope their wives are “busy with other men” whilst they are on duty.

We haven’t had much luck this season really. We just need to get something out of games when we don’t deserve to, that’s the solution really. I think the team does need strengthening and Jan is on the case. We do need some creation in the middle. In the absence of a new signing I would give Bo Henrisken a go deeper, he did ok a couple of seasons ago in a similar role.

Harriers V Cheltenham

Cheltenham are expected to still be without Bob Taylor and Damien Spencer is still banned. Before the game which fell to the power failure, I felt reasonably confident of a result. We had just picked up a draw at Bury whilst the Robins had been on a winless run and were below us in the table. Now they have picked up and overtaken us, winning 2-1 at Macclesfield on Saturday. This should see them in a better frame of mind than for the original game. Still who knows, maybe we can produce a good display and get something and dare I suggest have a bit of luck as well. Either way, we need to start picking up points very soon otherwise disaster is on the horizon.

Tiger in talks ?

It is reported on the Hull City official site that Harriers are talking to midfielder Dean Keates. Keates, who enjoyed a succesful spell at Walsall, his home town club, is out of favour at the KC Stadium. Described as an all action "tigerish"(excuse the pun) midfielder, he could just be what were after. From that description and given his black country rootes he could be the new Sean Flynn. Maybe if you look further back, a new Paul Grainger, who also joined Harriers when we were in a relegation battle. Anyway more when we know it, sounds promising though and with his midlands connections, it may help.

Source: official Hull City

Keates signs

Further to the above, Harriers have signed Dean Keates according to Harriers official site.

Source: official site