In Adrian Viveashs' last game for us before he returns to Swindon he finally blotted an otherwise spotless copy book by gifting a goal to a Hull City side who, on this showing, will struggle in Division 2 next term.

Even taking into account the poor weather conditions, and a referee who had a reputation to uphold, they hardly managed to get their game going and in the end resorted to one of the worst displays of route one football since Cheltenham last played at Aggborough.

Jan Molby opted to start with our new loan signings Simon Brown and Leon Clarke and also recalled Adam Murray to the side after finding himself on the bench for the game at Lincoln last week.

The first twenty minutes of the game were quite forgetful apart from Mr Kettle brandishing cards at anyone who passed by and for the horrendous injury that happened to the City midfielder, Lee Marshall.

Marshall, on loan from WBA, went for a 50/50 ball with Scott Stamps and sadly his leg was broken as an outcome.  No blame can be laid at the feet of Stampsie, it was purely an accident.  The fact that the City fans didn't argue about it and Kettle didn't book Scott seemed to confirm that.

The next bit of action came ten minutes later when Simon Brown followed up his debut goal at Lincoln last week with a debut goal at Aggborough.  In one of the rare occasions of good football in the first half Adam Murray managed to shrug off his marker and played the ball through to Brown who then hit the ball as it passed him and sent it flying past the City keeper, Myhill.

Following the goal we applied a bit of pressure but the game then slowed down due to officialdoms greater demands.

One of these led to a free kick for Hull and a booking for Murray after he was deemed to have committed a foul on the edge of their area.  What the offence was wasn't clear.  After a lot of shoving and squaring up Stuart Green took the free kick and luckily for us it just clipped the top of the bar as it went out for a goal kick.

Mark Yates almost extended our lead just prior to half-time but his shot was deflected off a City defender and out for a fruitless corner.

After a rather long half-time break the wind had dropped to just the occasional mild gust and so the conditions became more conducive to good football.  All we needed now was two good footballing sides but we hadn't got one.

Both sides continued to play as they had in the first half and the ball spent most of the early part of the second half in the clouds.

Again the opening period of this half was memorable for another bad injury.  This time our own Dean Bennett was the injured party after he turned and fell badly following a challenge from Junior Lewis.  Luckily for him it wasn't as bad as the earlier one and he had just twisted his knee but still needed a stretcher.  As he was being carried off Matt Gadsby took his place.

It was just after that incident that City came into the game more and came very close to grabbing an equaliser if it wasn't for an amazing last gasp challenge from Wayne Hatswell to deny Ben Burgess.  John Danby, improving after a horrendous first half, just about managed to palm away a strike from Stuart Elliott but, just as the ball fell right for Burgess, Hatswell came storming in from nowhere to boot the ball away from his feet.

Adrian Viveash then responded at the other end with a header that was only just cleared off the line by City but then went and spoiled it for himself, and us, by gifting them a goal.

He collected a routine ball in the middle of the park but, with the crowd shouting 'man on', dallied too long and was robbed by Elliot who then squared the ball for Burgess who easily slipped the ball under the exposed Danby.

It must have been sickening for Viv, a player who has come in on loan and really helped to give the team the confidence to climb the table and away from the relegation zone.  Because he's so good I think all Harriers fans would forgive him that one mistake.

After that both sides seemed happy with the points shared and apart from a few substitutions, and Kettle now just simmering and not boiling, the only goal attempt of note was a superb shot by John Williams in the dying seconds that could have won the game for us.

A draw was a fair result for both sides in the end but what was never a dirty game was spoiled by a referee out to earn himself a reputation.  And the FA a couple of quid.