The Harriers racked up their second 3-0 home win in the space of a few days this evening with this emphatic league win against Gloucester City. At first City caught us by surprise and came at us strongly from the kick off but we just waited for them to run out of steam before we pounced and took the game by the scruff of the neck. City had been running around so much, and getting nowhere, that it wasn't long before the first player went down suffering from cramp and that continued throughout the evening with the game continually stopping for the shared physio to come on.
It was the Tigers who were to get the first threat of a goal though when James Fitzgibbon fired a speculative cross come shot towards Sam Hornbys goal with the keeper reaching back as it went over his head and onto the crossbar. That was the last we saw of the visitors being a potent strikeforce and we began to take control of the game. Sometimes our passing was a little wayward but mostly we were getting it right.
Tyrell Waite was the first to show for us when he ran on to Arthur Gnahouas through ball and then went on to test out the City keeper, Jas Singh formerly of the parish of Aggborough. Minutes later and we were at it again with Andre Brown broke free and bore down on Singh then ruined it all by firing straight at him and then see it go out for a corner.
Brown, again, repeated his effort a minute later and somehow once more contrived to fire at the keeper once more after doing most of the hard work getting there. We were beginning to get that awful feeling that we were never going to score and that Gloucester would grab a goal then close shop. Thankfully they scored for us.
More pressure had won us another corner and James McQuilkin played the ball into the area where all the players were trying to occupy a one metre square of turf. In the pushing and the shoving the ball ended up in the net with no one owning up to who had scored. City's Sam Avery was obviously too embarrassed to admit it was him.
We should have added another seconds after when Singh again came to his clubs rescue. Gnahoua had left his defenders for dead once again and his strong shot was once again aimed straight at the keeper who pushed it away as it stung his hands but only as far as Waite who then somehow contrived to miss the open goal as Singh got down quickly to stop the ball crossing the line.
In the final minute of the half (three minutes added on for the Gloucester fallen) Waite should have added our second when he fired across the face of the goal after a beautiful through ball from McQuilkin had played him in.