Harriers storm home against Robins
This game was a fair reflection of the weather conditions this afternoon as the Reds beat the all conquering Cheltenham Town. It started off with sunny spells as the Harriers surprised their own fans with a display of passing and intelligent play that saw us restrict Cheltenham to just a single shot on target.
After the break came the lull before the storm and we seemed to be getting lulled into into a coma as the Robins began to take the upper hand.
Just 15 minutes from the end the storm broke and we woke up to take the game by the scruff of the neck and like a flash of lightning we had clawed it back to send the fans hoping for something similar next week.
The Harriers new signing, Sean Flynn, made his debut and it was obvious that he had lost none of his skills. He was a class above all the others out there and at times reminded us of Mike Marsh with his cultured play and visionary passing. Let's hope we can keep him for more than the agreed 3 months.
Drewe Broughton opened the scoring for us with a dubious penalty decision after a nudge from Steve Jones. He tucked it away with ease.
It was all looking too easy for us. Although Cheltenham seemed to be lacking in ideas at least they had lost the tendency to hoof the ball away when under pressure.
Some people have been saying that they'll not be able to hack it in Div 2 and are one of the favourites for the drop. I don't think so, they look like being a capable side and there are far worse teams than themselves in that league. Northampton and Colchester are just two that trip off the tongue.
It was almost on the stroke of halftime that their goal came. Brayson collected the ball on the edge of the area and easily slipped past the hesitant Harriers defence to side foot it past Brock in our goal.
At the start of the second period the Robins made a couple of changes when they took off Griffin and the less than impressive Williams. On came Duff and triallist Damien Spencer and straight away they burst into action.
First McAuley tested Brockie and then Brayson had a go. Then came our turn when a shot from Ian Joy struck the underside of the bar but the lurking Dean Bennett was slow to react and blazed the rebound over the bar.
A minute later we went 2-1 down when it was Tony Naylor's turn to hit the crossbar but this time the impressive Spencer was alert to it and headed home from close range.
The storm clouds were starting to gather now and we looked to be heading for a hammering. We just couldn't seem to be capable of raising our game to compete with Cheltenham as they took the upper hand.
Flynn, Drewe, Lower and Bo were trying hard to rally the troops and when the rain came down hard thats when we hit the Robins hard. First on 70 minutes Broughton came in with his second goal when he gathered a cross from Deano to shoot unmarked into the bottom corner of the net.
By now the heavens had well and truly opened and with the pitch starting to get water logged Ian Joy lobbed the ball to Bo who was standing all alone in the Cheltenham half. He took the ball down and with difficulty managed to get the ball rolling towards Tony Book in their goal. As he advanced Bo side stepped him to fire the ball into the empty net.
It's looking more promising for the visit of Lincoln next week.
Harriers:
Brock, Lower, Joy, D Williams, Hinton, Ayres, Bennett (Doyle), Parrish (Shilton), Flynn, Broughton, Henriksen.
Cheltenham:
Book, Griffin (Duff), Brough, Jones, Victory, L Williams (Spencer), McAulay, Yates, Milton (Bird), Naylor (Kear), Brayson.
Score: 3-2 Att: 1063
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