Stratford Town 1 Harriers 5

In a change to the schedules today the Harriers friendly at Stratford was promoted from a Harriers XI game to a full first team try out following the cancellation of tomorrow evenings game at the Leicestershire side Barwell.  The official website said that the reason was down to injuries following a growing injury list in the games that had been played so far.

Kyle Storer (4), Mickey Demetriou (3) and Danny Lewis (1) have all missed games through minor injury and Cheyenne Dunkley (22) has yet to feature at all.  As an aside the club have also leaked out the squad numbers today so I'll put the players squad number for the coming season after their name.

The starting line-up featured Robert Ambrusics, a keeper that has previously played for Leicester City and Cambridge Utd, along with Paul McCone who we have already see on Saturday at Stafford and also our latest signing.  One Keith Briggs now that he has returned to us from Fleetwood Town who he had joined last season.

The Reds took the lead in just the seventh minute with a penalty converted by Lee Vaughan (2) following a trip in the area.  A few minutes later Ryan Rowe (9) added a second goal when he lobbed the keeper from the edge of the area.

Ryan could have added a third goal and his second soon after but this time the keeper parried the ball but only as far as Rob Thompson-Brown (13) who could only manage to skew the ball wide.  On thirty two minutes Stratford pulled a goal back with Luke Williams converting a penalty for them.

Just on the stroke of half time R T-B did manage to score when he somehow managed to score straight from a corner although it was helped into the net by the keeper.

HT: Stratford Town 1 Harriers 3

1st half team:
Ambrusics, Vaughan, McCone, Demetriou, Johnson, Thompson-Brown, Byrne, Briggs, Pilkington, Rowe, Guinan

The second half line-up contained yet another different keeper.  This time it was Josh Van Leader although little is known about him apart from he formerly played for an American side, Georgia Revolution.  Also lining up was Aron Wint (see the Swifts report here.

Five minutes after the re-start and Ricky Shakes (17) put us unreachably 4-1 up with a close range header and then totally out of Stratfords reach when Anthony Malbon (10) grabbed our fifth and final goal.

Following a couple of substitutions the game filtered out with just a lone chance for Justin Naisbitt

FT: Stratford Town 1 Harriers 5

2nd half team:
Van Leader, Vaughan, Geohaghon, Austin, Williams, Shakes, Gittings, Briggs, Pilkington, Malbon, Wint.