Venue:
Aggborough
att:  2340  away fans:  120?
Extra info
Harriers
1
  Birch 47
A poor game to give most Harriers fans in the last home game in the League.
Only two or three players earned their corn in this dire showing.
Grimsby Town
4
  Jones 8
  Reddy 13,78
  Parkinson 48
  harriers-online match report
Saturday 30th April 2005  
HOME
Home games end with defeat


The Harriers played out their penultimate game in the Football League in a similar style to the way they have been playing in recent weeks.  With a couldn't care less attitude that takes some understanding considering our plight.

As a prelude to the game it was the annual awards ceremony and compared to recent years it was a very low key event.  John Danby got the Junior Supporters award, Johnny Mullins the Trust award and Dean Keates picked up the supporters vote.  There was some applause, but not much.

For this game it was a first chance to see Adam Chambers pull on a red shirt following his release from West Brom and on this showing he looks to be too good for us.  I would love to see him here next season but I doubt if he'd want to stay after watching some of his team mates perform.

Missing was Tom Bennett through injury and on the bench Steve Burton of all people, either waiting for his chance in the shop window or getting himself ready for life in the Conference.

With the game kicking off in warm sunshine it didn't take long for the Harriers fans to see that we weren't up for it.  Grimsby took the game straight to us and Michael Reddy didn't take long to make his presence known with some boisterous attacking that was leaving us a bit bruised.  Within a few minutes they had gone into the lead.

Grimsby were given a free kick just inside our half and the long kick was played in by Ronnie Bull to land perfectly on the head of Rob Jones who then placed his strong header between John Danby and the post.  It wouldn't take much to find him anyway, he's as tall as Eddystone lighthouse.

Their second goal came just four minutes later after a defensive error from Wayne Hatswell let in Reddy for the first instalment of his brace.  He won the ball on the halfway line, and, using his pace to race away from our lethargic defenders, beat Danby by sliding the ball home without any problem.

Reddy came close to scoring again on twenty five minutes but sent his shot well over from the edge of the area.

There was a bit of a scare for Danby when he came off worst in a challenge with Parkinson that left both players with leg injuries.  For the remainder of the half John struggled to take kicks and Daniel Lewis spent his time doing touchline exercises but was never called on to replace him.

It took us thirty five minutes to come anywhere near to scoring and our only chance of the half came from Mark Rawle with a snapshot that crashed off the crossbar.

The half eventually staggered to a close without much more action from either side and it was a relief to watch the kids playing at half time.  They seemed to be more interested in what they were doing.


HT. 0 - 2

There were two changes for us at the start of the second half with Billy Jones coming off to be replaced by Steve Burton.  I couldn't see the thinking behind this, except to see if Burton would attract a buyer, and in the end it was just a like for like swap that didn't yield anything different than the first forty five minutes.

The other change was Gary Birch replacing Chris Beardsley.  That did bring something new to our game with a more attacking attitude that bought with it our one and only goal just two minutes after the re-start.  The ball came in and Birch was there to plant a lovely side footed ball past, the one time Harriers target, Anthony Williams in the Grimsby goal.

We'd pulled a goal back and it was now game on for us.  Well it was for all of a minute because Grimsby then went and scored from the kick off.  Again it was the dangerous Reddy that left Mark Jackson for dead, pulled the ball back, and placed it perfectly for Andy Parkinson to head home at the near post.

We then started to produce our best football of the game so far with shot after shot being targeted at the Grimsby goal.  First Simon Russell saw his shot hit the post then Mark Rawle should have done better when he sent his shot just wide with only Williams to beat then Gary Birch got in a header that was just wide.

There was another bad injury soon after with a couple of minutes delay before the game re-started.  Mark Rawle was heading for goal when he was tackled strongly by Rob Jones and with Jones clutching his leg Rawlie chased the ball down to put a cross in then fell to the ground clutching his leg.

Luckily both players recovered but Jones went off soon after having failed to get over his injury.

On seventy seven minutes Grimsby finally killed us off with a superb goal from Reddy.  Hegerty, on for Parkinson, chased the ball into the corner and crossed for Reddy to smash a first time ball into the back of the net.

The game just fizzled out in the heat and after the whistle had blown we saw just a couple of players come to the edge of the area to say thank you to the fans for having to suffer a season long of rubbish.  The rest just headed for the dressing rooms as quickly as possible.


FT. 1 - 4

The Harriers-Online
Man of the Match is : 
Adam Chambers

A good showing for him considering that this was his first game in ages.  He looks too good for us and I'd not be surprised to see him joining a team like Grimsby during the close season.

Harriers  subs   cards      Grimsby  subs   cards 
Danby     Williams  
Chambers     Whittle  
Billy Jones     Bull  
Hatswell     Ramsden  
Jackson     Rob Jones  
Cozic     Crane  
Beardsley     Crowe  
Keates     Fleming  
Rawle     Reddy
Russell     Pinault  
McGrath     Parkinson  
SUBS:       SUBS:    
Lewis     Soames  
Birch     Coldicott  
Burton     Hockless  
Sturrock     Downey  
Weaver     Hegarty  

REFEREE:
Mr B Curson
Leicestershire


links to some
grimsby websites:

official site
cod almighty
electronic fishcake
click below
to see previous
results

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