Harriers claw a draw from the jaws of Amy

Probably the most exciting thing about this scrappy game at breezy Hayes was the emergency appointment of the intended author of this report, Morgan Nock, to the position of fourth official.  Just under ten minutes of the game had passed when Dean Bennett was bundled from the pitch headlong into the dugouts where the official fourth official was standing.  He was rendered in-operable from the 'assault' and for a short while someone from Hayes stood in for him but couldn't work out how to use the electronic subs board and a call was put out to the crowd for a FA registered official so our Morgster volunteered and the rest is history.  At seventeen years old he has been an official at a Blue Square Premier game and also met his heroine, Amy Fearns nee Rayner.

The game itself was poor first half fare for both sets of spectators but more so for the Harriers supporters.  Again the Harriers manager, Steve Burr, decided to start without a recognised striker on the pitch and went with a front pairing of Chris McPhee and Darryl Knights with Robbie Matthews and James Lawrie sat on the bench.

At the back Tom Sharpe again deputised for Duane Courtney with the regular man also on the bench.  In midfield John Finnigan made it two games in a row.

The first chance of the game came Hayes way when defender Adam Green let go a shot from the edge of the area that Ross Atkins managed to save easily enough.  We retaliated with a shot from Knights that hit Ram Marwa and went out for a corner.

A further ten minutes passed and we almost went behind on two occasions when Marwa should have scored from a few yards out and then Dean Bennett cleared a Tom Cadmore header off the line when a first goal looked almost certain.  Two minutes later and Hayes took the lead.

Cadmore sent over a corner kick that got blocked but only as far as Scott Fitzgerald who drove the ball through a ruck of players and into the net beyond the reach of Atkins.

As for the legendary Amy? she had booked four players, two for each side, before the first half was out and turned down an appeal for a penalty when Darryl Knights was pulled down in the area but then awarded the free kick in Hayes favour.  Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

As expected the second half commenced with a substitution for us.  On came Duane Courtney for Tom Sharpe in an effort to tighten up a very loose back line and that seemed to work for a while because the Harriers started to get into the game far more than they did during the first period.

Bennett was the first to go close for us with a shot that went just over the bar and then a few minutes later leading scorer, Brian Smikle, had his sight of goal with a shot that also went just over the bar.  Not long after that we managed to grab the equaliser through Chris McPhee.

A long ball from Courtney was played into the area towards McPhee but his shot was fumbled by the Hayes keeper, Clark Masters, and fell back towards McPhee who then made sure this time by sliding the ball beneath the keeper and into the net.  That was Chris's third goal in two games and takes him to twelve goals this season, just one behind Smikle.

The equality didn't last long though because soon after Fitzgerald scored his second goal of the evening.  A ball was played into the area and as usual we were guilty of over egging the pudding and not clearing the ball to safety with a long boot upfield or out of the ground and Fitzgerald returned the ball with interest through our defence and into the net.

With fifteen minutes of the game left, and the Harriers 2-1 down, we went looking for another goal to draw us level once again.  That goal came but in the seconds before that controversy caught up with Amy when Luke Prosser and Fitzgerald clashed in the Harriers penalty area and both players were booked.  The Hayes man had already received a first half yellow card and so was given a red but Prosser should also have been sent off after he retaliated by pushing two hands into Fitzgerald's face.

At least for once we weren't on the wrong end of a poor decision from Amy and from the restart of the game we pulled back our second goal of the evening when a corner was taken by Darryl Knights and came over for Martin Riley to head into the back of the net.  A rare goal from a corner and we don't see many of those.

The remainder of the game was played out with both sides seemingly content with what they had and a draw seemed to be the best conclusion overall.  We now have a big game on Saturday when Stevenage come to claim the Champions crown.  Hopefully we won't let them but on this showing can we stop them?

 Goals for Hayes: Fitzgerald 40, 71
 Goals for Harriers: McPhee 57, Riley 81

REFEREE:

Mrs A Fearns Leicestershire