The Harriers will be playing ambitious Fleetwood Town of the Blue Square North in the 4th qualifying round of this seasons FA Cup on October 24th. In the draw made earlier today it was their name that came out of the hat and it gives us a chance to come up against a former players new club.Mickey Mellon (right), signed by Jan Molby in 2004, was never a hit with the Harriers fans after playing just eight times in five months for us. Most of the time the highly paid defender was out injured for a variety of obscure injuries until eventually someone saw the light and he was told to sling his hook. He is now the manager at Fleetwood and, to be fair, he does seem to be doing a good job for them.
With the help of a rich man they have started to build for a Football League future and don't seem to be afraid of keeping the purse strings drawn too tightly. Already they have started to re-build their ground, ironically named Highbury, and now have plans for a new £4,000,000 stand that will seat 2000 fans. Bear in mind that they only attract around half that number at the moment and that Fleetwood is a bit of a one fish town overshadowed by Blackpool and it's hard to see where the new fan base will come from.
On the playing side Mellon has also been spending big and he, it's rumoured, swiped Ketterings' Gareth Seddon from under our noses at the end of August. Other well known players at Highbury include the former Villa and Blackpool defender Alan Wright, Steve McNulty formerly of Barrow, Jamie Mullan - a player well known to us from his former side Northwich and Claus Jorgensen formerly of Coventry City.
We couldn't really have asked for a tougher game than this to open our Cup campaign but if we aim to do as well as last seasons run as far as the Ricoh Stadium where we went out against the Sky Blues then we have to get past this kind of hurdle first time.
The official Fleetwood Town website is here and the message board is here
The full draw:
Photo © KHFC
