harriers-online match preview
9th February 2004 
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Cheltenham Town
At Aggborough
Tuesday
10/2/04 7:45pm
Third time lucky for this game tomorrow and it will have even more importance for us after some bad results for us and good ones for Cheltenham since the floodlight failure.

Before that fateful night the Robins were below us in the League and a win against them would have taken us up to the relative safety of mid table.  Of course we now know that we have lost both games since then, Oxford & Yeovil, while Cheltenham have recorded two wins, at home to Orient and on Saturday away at Macclesfield.

Now it's us who are fourth from bottom and worried while Cheltenham sit in fourteenth place and feeling a bit more secure.

This makes the game tomorrow an even more important one for us to win.  One point will not be enough bearing in mind the six pointer coming up at Southend this weekend.

Thankfully we have no injury worries after Saturdays disgraceful performance so we should start with more or less the same team again.  The only change needed will be Graham Ward coming in for Rob Betts who I didn't think had a brilliant game.

If Jan has got any sense he'll carry on with the Rickards/Jesper partnership but, when the time comes, leave Rickards on and substitute Jesper for John Williams instead.  As for Matt Gadsby? well he can't play any worse than Saturday, can he?

We know that Kenny Coleman is still injured and also that Adam Willis is under going tests at the Priory Clinic on his whiplash injury so they won't be available.  There is talk of Jan having signed his old mate Dean Keates from Hull City but that won't be in time for this game.

Remember Lee Jenkins?  He's still out.


Richard Forsyth If Harriers fans are hoping to see our ex captain, Mark Yates, tomorrow then they'll be feeling let down because he appears to be out of favour with the Cheltenham manager, John Ward, and at the age of thirty four his days seem to be numbered at Whaddon Road and he may find himself at Common Road, Evesham next season.

The one we'll all be looking forward to meeting again though is the legendary Richard Forsyth.  This will be his first playing appearance back at Aggborough since he left all those years ago.  He joined Cheltenham just over a year ago but has not played many games through injury and has been used mainly as a substitute in recent weeks.

Ward has been using the loan system in recent weeks and had two players on loan from Stoke City.  Last week Stoke decided to recall one of them, the ex-Beach Boy Brian Wilson, but at the same time has allowed Karl Henry to stay at Waddle Road for a further month.

Their other loan player, Peter Hynes, was injured in training last week and will be facing a late fitness test tomorrow morning.

As in the preview for the abandoned game Bob Taylor and Damien Spencer will still be missing due to injury and yellow cards respectively and they'll also be without Shane Duff after he was carried from the pitch on Saturday with a leg injury.


As I said before, this game is another must win game and this time we have got to be up for it and not turn in yet another couldn't care less performance.

Don't the players realise the position we're in?

STOP PRESS:  Just after I posted this I had a txt message from the club saying we had signed Keates and that he may be available for tomorrow night.

Teams

Harriers from:
Brock, Danby, Stamps, Gadsby, Hatswell, Murray, Hinton, D Williams, Parrish, Bennett, Betts, Keates, Ward, Christiansen, Henriksen, Rickards, J Williams.

Cheltenham from:
Book, Higgs, Griffin, Victory, Forsyth, Brough, Yates, Brayson, McCann, Bird, Devaney, Odejayi, M Duff, Buttery, Cleverley, Dobson, Cozic, Finnigan, Humphries, Hynes, Fyfe.
Previous games against Cheltenham
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