The Harriers got their first goal and first win of the season today when they beat Darlington 1 - 0 in a game that was a disappointment after Tuesday nights rip roaring game against Notts County.

It was a well taken penalty from Ian Foster that got the points after Simon Brown had been up ended by Darlos' Liddle.  He was heading for goal and then, instead of moving inside the defender he decided to go outside him, Liddle fell for the dummy and bought him down.

Fozzie stepped up and took it calmly, sending Sam Russell the wrong way.

Up until then the game had been dire.  Darlington had started the strongest and we never looked in it with pass after pass failing to find a player and some schoolboy defending letting the non-existent Darlo strikers in.

The other Steve Thomas saw a shot go over the bar and the man mountain, Matty Clarke, saw his shot go out of the ground.  A typical central defender shot.

Again, as in our two opening games, it took twenty minutes before we managed to achieve anything useful.  That came with a shot from Youssou Diop from the edge of the area but, sadly, it was just off target and went well wide of the intended mark.

Towards the end of the half Simon Brown started to get into the game more and was unlucky not to do better when he had two attempts.  The first went over and the second was wide.

The second half started with a bit more vigour and Fozzie should have done a lot better than firing straight at the keeper after being set up nicely by Brown.  Minutes later and we had gone one up thanks to that penalty.

Up until then the referee, Steve Tanner, had failed to live up to his reputation of being a card happy Hitler.  Inexplicably he didn't book Liddle for bringing down Brownie in the area but felt that Simons actions at a throw in was culpable and warranted censure.

Knowing he was on a card should have been a warning to Brownie but, no, just two minutes later he was taking the long walk after kicking the ball away following a dubious offside decision.  It all happened so quickly that I, and many others, thought that Simon was having a pop at goal and because it was a split second after the lino raised his flag we thought the ref would take the same view.

Not this wielder of pancakes!  A sharp word to Brown was all it needed but no, he'd rather flash the cards again, and sent the bemused Albion loanee off.

We were now on the back foot and Jan eventually introduced Jesper to the fray, taking off the injured Diop for him.  Jesp did ok after his midweek mauling in the press by Jan but he's still not the quickest thinker in class.

On more than one occasion he played a pass only to be no-where near for the return.  His positional play needs some working on, although, for one move he was in the right place but Ian Foster chose to ignore him and went for goal himself only to find himself too far away and running out of puff.  His weak shot was easily saved.

With time running out Darlo started to throw all they could at John Danby but he made some world class saves to keep the three points intact.  He stopped a double shot from Craig Russell and then performed similar heroics to keep out a blammer from Matty Clarke.

So in the end the game finished in our favour but it was a poor showing by the Reds.  We're going to have to do a lot better at Mansfield next Saturday.