Shocking violence mars tame goalless draw

Less than a thousand Harriers fans turned up for a violence strewn game against Aldershot Town tonight.    With crunching, blood curdling tackles going in the referee had no choice but to stamp down on these shocking offences before they happened and booked players for touching each other, getting in the way and kicking balls away.    Jonny Harkness was the biggest culprit when he blatantly said 'boo' to one Aldershot player then got himself sent off for calling another player a rogue and a scoundrel.

This was behaviour that the effeminate referee could not accept on his stage and he clamped down with the full force of his limp wrist.

It's just a shame that so few home fans could leave the comfort of their homes to come and see the game and would rather stay at home to watch a repeat of Manchester Utd on the television yet again.

Mark Yates started the game with our two reserve strikers? - Reynolds and Hay - on the pitch and kept the other two first choice strikers? - Christie and Constable - on the bench.    As expected we were never going to see a glut of goals from the starting pair and so it turned out.    Hay did look a bit more sharper than he was at Rushden but he still doesn't have any idea what the two white posts and that stringy thing are for.

Russ Penn was out suspended so we saw Brian Smikle taking his place.    Daft thing was that I had no idea he was playing because during the first half he was so anonymous.

For the major part of the first half we looked like a team intent on getting a result with some fast passing and running but too often it was the ball over the top that let us down.    Our front two have no real ball control and found themselves getting dis-possessed as soon as the ball landed.

Simon Russell looked good in parts and with places at Wembley at stake we did look a bit more interested than in recent games.

Luke Reynolds had a chance to score early on in the game but sent his shot just wide and that was about it.    Nothing else got within a fleas whisker of Nicky Bulls goal.

The mincing referee was just getting warmed up and booked Grant and Newman for the Shots and gave Harkness his first booking for a so so foul on Louis Soares.