The town had been told that they would need to turn out in force to claim their vouchers for the forthcoming Wolves game and they ended up by staying away in droves.

It wasn't so much a snub on the nose for Colin Youngjohns, more a kick in the teeth.  The club had wanted to make it as fair as possible to ensure that true Harriers fans would be able to attend the game but they hadn't taken into account that it's so near Christmas.  Also todays game came on the day when crowds are traditionally low due to the call of the tills in the shopping malls of the nation.

Time for a re-think Colin.

Those that did turn up today missed an interesting game, interesting in that at times in the first half we seemed at sixes and sevens in our thinking and in the second half, after the appearances of the subs, we seemed to have got it sussed out.

A tentative start was penalised when Justin Miller spent a theatrical 5 minutes drying the ball off and then doing exercises on the touchline in readyness for his BIG throw.  Our lot didn't see it coming but Gabriel Zakuani did and headed it past the rooted Stuart Brock for Orients only goal.

This spurred us into action and shots from Dean Bennett and Andy White bought out brilliant saves from the Orient keeper, Glenn Morris.  Jan? if you're looking for a new keeper to buy with all this money due to us then please spend most of it on Morris.

The Reds finally managed to get the ball past Morris in the 31st minute but it didn't come from one of our players, it came from an old Rushdenite.

Morris pushed away a fine Adie header and the ball was played back into the area by Matt Gadsby.  With no Harriers front men within distance of the cross Mark Peters thought he had cleared the ball to safety but instead had looped it over the head of Morris and into the back of the net.

Just after the Orient goal scorer, Zakuani, had to be subbed after crashing to the ground badly and injuring himself.

We seemed to lose it for a bit after that with only shots from Dean and Andy looking like coming close.

The second half started in much the same way that the first one had finished but that was all to change just six minutes in.  Bo Henriksen came on for Steve Burton and John Williams made way for the new boy Scott Rickards and straight away the impetus changed from a midfield mess to a full blown assault on the Orient goal.

Straight away Rickards was in action with his well judged runs, once he gets on the same wavelength as the others he should become a good asset for us.

The Reds started to pepper the goal with shots and forcing corners and on the 65th minute the pressure paid off when Bo sent in a cross to Matt Gadsby who hit on the turn and sent it past Morris to give us the lead.

We didn't rest there though and continued to look for a third goal.  Man of the Match, Andy White, came close and so did Danny Williams whose shot was deflected goalwards by the keeper only for Matt Joseph to lunge at it at the foot of the post and only just clear it to safety.

Ten minutes from the end and Rickards almost crowned his debut with a goal.  I thought it had gone in, half the crowd thought it had gone in and so did the man in charge of the scoreboard and goal music.

For the final ten minutes the Orient started to apply a bit more pressure on us but it was too little too late and the final whistle blew on the three points for us.