Two teams with aspirations of beating Premiership giants on home ground will be meeting each other in this Boxing Day clash.  There is one big difference though.

Yeovil's opponents are the mighty Liverpool and all of Yeovil's inhabitants seem to have gone FA Cup mad.  With tickets more or less all sold out and now being sold on eBay at a premium this can truly be called a town gripped by Cup fever.

Compare this with the scene in Kidderminster where there is an equally big attraction against the Wolves.  How much closer can we get to a Premiership side? but here it all seems to have turned to apathy.

It all started so well when the draw was first made but since then the club have gone from one incompetent decision to another incompetent decision for non season ticket holders.  First it was go to the Orient game and buy a programme, picking up your special voucher on the way.  A few days later queue up at the ticket office and buy 4 future match tickets in advance.  Only then could you buy your Wolves ticket.

You could see the logic behind it in trying to keep out the Wolves fans from the Red part of the stadium but not the logic in forcing ordinary working class people into shelling out the best part of their Christmas present money just for one match ticket:
'Sorry dear.  There's no presents for the kids this year or a tree to put them under.  Stuff the turkey dear, we'll have thinly sliced ham instead because I'm spending all the money on a ticket for the Wolves'.

When it was obvious from the lack of people turning up for the Orient game and the lack of queues when the tickets went on sale the club changed the rules.  Then they changed them again when they went on general sale, from where you only needed to buy the match ticket to needing to buy two match tickets as long as you bought four advance tickets.

That was how it started on the morning of the general sale but again no queues and people complaining.  So they back tracked yet again within a hour of the ticket office opening to just having two advance tickets along with your two match tickets.  That didn't last long though and it's now down to one match ticket needed.

It is one almighty cock up and after wondering why the match hasn't sold out they'll then offer the Wolves the remaining 1000 tickets but find that there's no where for them to go because they've already sold tickets to Harriers fans for most parts of the ground.

If we get past Wolves lets hope for a nice away draw somewhere.  Accrington sounds like a nice area.


Yeovil have had their first bit of bad news this week when they were told that Jake Edwards sending off for elbows in a recent game at Bristol Rovers would stand and he would be serving a three match ban.  This will start with our game and also include the Swansea and Liverpool games.

Edwards was always a player that I admired during his time at Telford and for the life of me can never understand why a player watched so much by Graham Allner was never signed by us.  He would have done a good job for us, the same way that he's doing one now for Yeovil.

The Glovers will also be without Darren Way (fractured leg) and Roy O'Brien who will both be missing through long term injuries.

Goals from Kirk Jackson and recalled winger Andy Lindegaard got them the points last Saturday at home to Scunthorpe to send them into third spot in the league, where a gap is now opening up between the top five teams and the rest of the division.

At the other end an inept display from us on Sunday saw us staying in the relegation zone when a win would have done us the world of good by sending us up to at least sixteenth place.

That game at York was the last we saw of on loan defender Steve Burton for the time being, now that he's gone back to Hull City.  Expect to see him back here by next season though.

Our two new faces, Scott Rickards and Lee Jenkins, will be expected to start the Boxing Day game as Jan tries to rescue something from the debris.  I have a feeling that Rickards will be alongside Andy White with Bo Henriksen still sat on the bench.

No injuries in the camp but I can't account for any Christmas Day aberrations.

Teams

Harriers from:
Brock, Danby, Stamps, Gadsby, Hatswell, Jenkins, Coleman, Smith, Hinton, D Williams, Parrish, Bennett, Betts, Ward, Shilton, Henriksen, Rickards, White, J Williams, Heath.

Yeovil from:
Weale, Collis, Crittenden, Elam, Jackson, Gosling, Lindegaard, Pluck, Reed, Lockwood, Rodrigues, Stansfield, Gall, Johnson, Skiverton, Terry, Thompson, G Williams.