Venue:
The Abbey Stadium
att:  3765  away fans:  272
Extra info
Cambridge Utd
0
  
Jesper wastes last second chance of a winner when he blasts over from a few yards out.
Abdou gets himself sent off again.
Harriers
0
  
 harriers-online match report
Saturday 17th April 2004 
HOME
Jesper scorns winning goal


The Harriers forced Cambridge into a scoreless bore draw at the Abbey Stadium.  No, that's wrong!  Cambridge were so bad that was all they deserved.  That's wrong too!  They were awful.

Even after we were put down to ten men by the Argussian referee Utd failed to threaten us but, sadly, neither did we when we could see that with twenty minutes left they were there for the taking.


Because I decided to make a weekend of it in Cambridge Matt Wall kindly did the following match report for me.


After five minutes of midfield errors from both sides it was Mark Yates who was to have Harriers first chance of the game when he tried his luck from range, however Shaun Marshall in the United goal was wise to it, and tipped the ball wide for a corner.

The opening half an hour was a scrappy affair with very little goalmouth action, but Cambridges' leading goal scorer and potential Charlton target Luke Guttridge, had the home sides' first attempt on 25 minutes but Danby got down well to quash the danger.

United had a golden opportunity to go into the break with a lead when, on 43 minutes, Stevland Angus bought down an Ash Nicholls pass, dummied first one way then the next and unleashed a shot on the Harriers goal that looked destined for the bottom corner of the net;  somehow however it sailed narrowly past Danby's goal much to the relief of the travelling fans.

Shane Tudor also went close before half-time but Matt Gadsby was on hand to clear the danger once more.


HT. 0 - 0

The second period began with a substitution for Cambridge when they bought on Daniel Webb for John Turner.  Striker for striker.

A few minutes into the half and it was Webb who played a big part in getting Abdou sent off when he went down theatrically in a 50/50 conflict with the big guy.  They both got booked for it, Sall for the tackle and Webb for his poor acting ability.

That booking was to cost poor old Sall dearly just minutes later.

Nine minutes into the second half, Cambridge's shyness in front of goal was again displayed by Easter, he failed to convert from a one on one with Danby, who easily collected the ball.

The dire state of the game was not lost on the Harriers management who brought on John Williams and new-father Adam Murray in an attempt to inject some life into the Harriers attack.

That was the first sign that Jan could see what all we Harriers fans could see.  Cambridge were bad, bad, bad!

The second sign was that it could have been a mistake when Abdou got himself sent off.

He made a mistimed tackle on Jermaine Easter.  Amazingly the ref wasn't even watching the play, I think he was waving to his mates in the crowd, he heard the roar from the home fans, turned and saw Abdou walking away with his hands displayed outwards as if to say "I hardly touched him ref".  Mr Argus thought otherwise, because the crowd had said so, and sent him off.

The obvious move for Jan now was to bring Scott Stamps on for a forward because the Cambridge attack were about to go into overdrive.

No!  We couldn't believe it but they looked even more ineffective now.  Scott warmed up for the rest of the game.

Simon Brown had a useful effort on 64 minutes, but his right-footed effort from 20-yards was saved by Shaun Marshall in the home goal.

Marshall was again called into action on 72 minutes from a Steve Burton free-kick, and the effort was tipped over the bar.  Mark Yates went close just a minute later but what should have been a decent chance was wasted with an awful header.

In stoppage time Harriers had John Danby to thank for keeping them in the game after he saved an excellent free kick from Shane Tudor.  The free kick was a beauty, swooping and curving over the Red wall and heading just inside the post.  The save was even better.

The match was now in it's final throes and we were looking more deserving of the point than Utd were but Jesper Christiansen could easily have stolen all three points at the death had he managed to convert a final chance.

John Williams tried to lob the ball over Marshalls head but he managed to push it away to the feet of the enigmatic Jesper.  All Jesper had to do was slide the ball into the empty goal but instead he panicked and blasted it over the bar of the empty goal.

This was a game that we so easily could have won but we obviously couldn't see that Cambridge were prepared to let us.  Three points gone begging but I think we should have no further worries about our League status now.


Thanks to Matt Wall for the match report.


FT. 0 - 0

The Harriers-Online
Man of the Match is : 
John Danby

Made a string of great saves that must make him worth a bit by now.  We should give him to Tamworth so they can make some money out of him.

vote for your
man of the match now

Cambridge  subs   cards      Harriers  subs   cards 
Marshall     Danby  
F Murray   Sall  
Goodhind     Burton
Tann     Hatswell
Angus     Hinton  
Walker     Gadsby  
Guttridge     Jenkins  
Nicholls     Parrish  
Easter     Christiansen  
Turner     Yates  
Tudor     Brown  
SUBS:       SUBS:    
Ruddy     Brock  
Robinson     Clarke  
Fleming     A Murray  
Webb   Stamps  
Chillingworth     Williams  

REFEREE:
Mr P Robinson
East Yorkshire

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