Harriers skipper hit by calf injury

6:00pm Tuesday 8th July 2008

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CAPTAIN Mark Creighton looks set to miss the start of Kidderminster Harriers’ pre-season programme through injury.

The Harriers skipper, last season’s player-of-the-year, damaged a muscle in his calf during a training session and is expected to be out for around a week.

However, fears he could miss a significant part of the new Blue Square Premier campaign have proved unfounded.

The 26-year-old towering centre-half is, though, likely to miss Saturday’s warm-up trip to former club Redditch, Monday’s match against Hereford United at Aggborough and possibly the visit of Plymouth Argyle the following Friday.

But Creighton should be fit to feature in the Errea South West Challenge Cup against Yeovil Town and Barnstaple Town later this month.

“I have got a grade two tear in the soleus muscle around the Achilles,” he said.

“When I first did it, it was that painful I thought it was really bad but it settled down a lot over the weekend so our physio could look at it and the news was good.”

The injury means Creighton is not able to be involved with contact training but has kept up his fitness levels by swimming and working in the gym.

He was hoping to join the rest of Mark Yates’ squad on the training pitch today but is not expecting to play against Redditch.

Creighton added: “I will still be as fit as the other lads but Saturday might be too soon.”

Aggborough boss Yates has set his sights on building a squad of 19 players for the forthcoming season.

Of those who reported back for pre-season training, only 12 are contracted to the club for the 2008/09 campaign but midfielders Simon Russell and Dean Bennett could soon join that list.

A number of trialists have also been involved and Yates is hoping to select the rest of his contingent from that group.

He said: “I’m looking to have something between 18 and 20, depending on what the budget allows.

“Nineteen would be an ideal number for me. Of course, you’d like more but I’d rather have quality over quantity.

“What we want is players to give good competition for places.

“We’ve got the nucleus of a decent side but we have to add to that with some more quality — we know that — and we’ll be aiming to do that over the next couple of weeks.”