This was a game, that on paper, we hadn't got a cat in hells chance of winning but to everyones surprise the brave Harriers held out until extra time against one of the top sides in Division 1, Ipswich Town.

Not long into extra time though.  Just 20 seconds.

On the night we have Stuart Brock to thank again after he gave a repeat of his shot stopping powers.  Power that we saw in the 2-1 win against Mansfield on Saturday.

There were a couple of changes to the side that kicked off the new season.  Bo Henriksen was being rested and Andy Bishop was refused permission to play by his club, Walsall, for fear of getting cup tied.  John Williams replaced Bo and interestingly Graham Ward took Bish's place.

The game started at pace with Town taking it to the Harriers and bombarding Brocks goal.  They could have gone into an early lead on more than one occasion with shots from Darren Bent, Magilton and Reuser all bringing the best out of Brock.

It wasn't all one way.  Graham Ward put the Ipswich keeper under pressure too with a free kick that he failed to hold but he did manage to grab the follow up from Scott Stamps.

Town continued to look for the opening goal but it was the Harriers who should have taken the lead when John Williams found himself with just the keeper to beat but took one step too many and put his shot wide.

Another powerful shot from Bent and a weak one from Counago ended the half with the Harriers still on equal terms.

Towns manager, Joe Royle, made two changes at the start of the second half when he took off Jim Magilton and Counago in exchange for Richard Naylor and Marcus Bent, no relation to Darren Bent.  We didn't make any changes.

Again Ipswich applied the pressure and again Brockie was standing firm.  Darren Bent again came close as he was put through but Brock was once more quickly off his line.

George Santos, Marcus Bent and Jermaine Wright all had shots charged down by the stubborn Harriers defence.  At the other end Ward sent a shot from the edge of the area well over the bar and Dean Bennett shot straight at the Town keeper, Kelvin Davis.

Dean Bowditch replaced the substitute Marcus Bent after 65 minutes and he was quickly in action when he fired a left wing cross straight at Brock.  He should have scored again minutes later but he sent his shot high over the bar.

Britt decided that the time was right for some changes too and pulled off John Williams and Sam Shilton to be replaced by Matt Lewis and Sean Parrish.

With time running down to 90 minutes Bowditch went close yet again, forcing Brock to save his volley brilliantly.


We had managed to last the full period and all we needed to do now was for the defence to hold firm and hopefully hit them on the break and score.

That was the intention but it didn't happen that way because within 20 seconds of the restart Bowditch had put Ipswich into the lead.

From the kick-off, which we took, the ball ran to Martijn Reuser who hit a speculative high ball towards the Harriers goal.  Scott Stamps failed to clear it properly and headed the ball straight at Bowditch who made no mistake in sending it past Brockie.

Reuser almost increased the lead two minutes later but he could only fire straight at Stuart from point blank range.

It was all Ipswich now and we felt our chance had gone.  A shot from Matt Lewis just winging the upright was our only chance of note.

The players were getting tired and so was the linesman who had to be replaced by the fourth official after suffering from cramp.

The final whistle eventually went and that was the end of the first of our cup games for this season.  After last seasons thrashing at Forest it was a far better display this time and if Bo had been fit to play we may, just may, have had a result.