The Harriers continued their good Christmas form at Aggborough today with a win over Leyton Orient that at one time they looked in danger of losing.
With the Orient down to ten men and in the lead twice it took an extra special goal from
Bo Henriksen to guarantee all three points for us.
We had our first shock early on in the game when 'JJ' Melligan was visibly injured in a harmless looking clash and had to leave the field for a while for treatment. After hobbling around for what seemed an age he eventually returned to the field of play to grateful applause.
During the time he had been missing the Harriers had survived a couple of early scares before Sam Shilton came close with our first real effort on goal. Sean Flynn supplied Shilton with the ball on the left and Shilts responded by curling a shot just wide of Scott Barrett's left hand post.
Apart from that the play from both sides was very scrappy and also worrying for us on seeing Lee Ayres being taken apart by Jabo Ibehre every time he got the ball.
It was his slack defending that saw Ibehre receive the ball from a throw-in in the penalty area with his back to goal and then allowed to turn and fire a shot between Coleman and Brock from 10yds out.
A further blow for us came with Sean Parrish limping off after 25 minutes with a hamstring strain. Danny Williams came on in place of him as a straight swap.
With the Harriers still struggling to get a grip on the game a goal suddenly appeared out of the blue. A long clearance from Stuart Brock bounced past a wrong footed Orient defender who allowed the ball to fall kindly for Dean Bennett to head past the advancing Barrett.
A minute before half time the Orient striker, Chris Tate, almost took Dean out of the game and out of the stadium with a terrible two footed tackle that instantly had the Harriers bench to their feet in shock. Strangely, the ref took out a yellow card and booked him for the tackle when it was obvious to both sets of fans that it should have been a red. As Tate walked away looking relieved the ref ran over to him and showed him a red card.