The Harriers have kept their season alive for another three days after coming back from a goal down at Welling to win with two late goals from Kelvin Langmead and James McQuilkin. If we had lost, or even drawn, this game then we would have been relegated to the Conference North. We now have to win at home to also struggling Halifax on Tuesday evening by at least three clear goals to put us into twenty third place and zoom above Welling.
Without Arthur Gnahoua in the starting line-up, thanks to his ongoing ankle problems, we made a few changes to the side that dragged themselves to a late draw at home to Altrincham last weekend. In came Gurjit Singh for his first start since Eastleigh away in December last year with Evan Garnett dropping to the bench. Also starting was Zaine Francis-Angol and James McQuilkin with Jared Hodgkiss also heading to the bench while Luke Maxwell was dropped completely.
Welling had won their last two games to give them a slight hope of avoiding the drop with a particularly good win at Tranmere against all the odds.
We were the first to break on a poor playing surface with Elton N'Gwatala going close to opening the scoring when he got beyond the home defenders to send in a shot that went just wide of the target with the keeper, Marek Rodák, beaten. Sadly we then went behind to another early goal and that seemed to knock our fragile confidence for six.
Poor defending allowed Kadell Daniel to pounce on a loose ball and poke it home from close range. It could easily have been two nil down for the Harriers minutes later when the unmarked Kevin Lokko headed over the bar from a Barney Williams corner.
We re-gained a little confidence when we went into our best spell of the game with half time approaching. Ben Whitfield headed wide from a Lewis Kinsella cross and then McQuilkin managed to get to another Kinsella cross to swivel, shoot and forced the Welling keeper to drop the ball but he recovered and clutched it gratefully to his chest.