The Harriers slipped to their lowest table placing since August today when they lost at the Champions in waiting, Aldershot Town. An early third minute goal from Matt Barnes-Homer gave the Harriers fans a boost but sadly the lead wasn't to last long when a goal from Danny Hylton pulled the Shots back into the game just two minutes later.
Despite a late rally, and a much improved display than in recent weeks, we couldn't regain the lead and eventually the home side grabbed the winning goal mid way through the second half.
Following that nightmare against Rushden during the week the Harriers manager, Mark Yates, sent two of that side to the bench - Darryl Knights, Jeff Kenna and one out of the side completely - Matt Bailey.
Alex Jeannin and Brian Smikle came back into the side while Matt Barnes-Homer kept his place. Gavin Hurren was out injured.
Aldershot had their latest signing, Junior Mendes, on the bench while leading scorer John Grant was out injured. They would also have been pleased to hear that their closest rivals for the Championship, Torquay Utd, had lost 2-0 at Grays at lunchtime.
The game had only been going just over two minutes when the Harriers went into a surprise lead. A pass back to the Shots keeper from Anthony Charles was too weak and MBH needed no prompting to run onto it and chip it over Nicky Bull, the Shots keeper. The lead only lasted a couple of minutes before Aldershot quickly pulled one back.
Charles again played a part in the goal when he played the ball into the area but Chris MacKenzie managed to push it out but only towards three opposing players rushing in with Danny Hylton getting the lucky touch to bundle the ball into the net.
The game settled down for a while then with the Harriers coming close to scoring again when Barnes-Homer got onto the end of a corner but sent his header flashing wide. Fifteen minutes into the game and Russ Penn picked up a yellow card for a strong challenge on Rob Gier and was lucky not to receive a further yellow soon after when he challenged Chalmers too heavily but somehow got away with it.
Not so for Aldershot though because they picked up four bookings during the game from the over officious referee.
In between Mackenzie pulled off a great save to keep the Harriers in the game when he dived well to stop a strong header from Joel Grant from entering the net and Michael McGrath went close to beating Bull when he latched onto a stepover by Smikle and sent in a low shot that got saved.
Aldershot had chances of their own to score but they never really got a clear site of goal and when they did then MacKenzie was equal to them. We went into half time looking a far better side than in recent weeks but could we hold on for a further forty five minutes.