Saturday, April 1, 2006

GRITTY Kidderminster Harriers consigned recent humiliating home defeats by Aldershot and Grays Athletic to history with a resolute rearguard performance to keep out promotion-chasing Stevenage Borough.

The 0-0 draw was even more impressive as the hosts had to hold on for the final 20 minutes of the game with ten men after centre-half Daryl Burgess was given his marching orders for collecting two yellow cards.

Stevenage striker Jon Nurse was clean through on goal when Burgess upended him.

After the match, the former Rochdale defender held his hands up and admitted he had to go, but added that he felt it was a price worth paying.

He said: "I have no complaints about the dismissal -- it was a case of having to do it.

"If they had scored we would have found it difficult to have come back. It was imperative that we kept a clean sheet and, hopefully, this is the result we can build upon."

The red card aside, the match was fairly uninteresting with the visitors, despite their lofty league status, creating very few chances of note.

Several high profile errors in recent weeks cost John Danby his place between the sticks for Harriers, and he might struggle to get it back after an inspired performance by his replacement Daniel Lewis.

In the 11th minute, Lewis was at full stretch to keep out a header from Luke Oliver. Harriers' only real chance of the first-half came on 44 minutes when Simon Rea's header from a Terry Fleming corner was headed off the line by Darryn Stamp -- a former Kidderminster player.

Jon Newby came closest to breaking the deadlock in the second-half when he was teed-up by Russ Penn.

However, his goal-bound strike was impressively kept out by an acrobatic save from Alan Julian.

Lewis was again the hero late on when he first kept out a cracking shot from George Boyd, before reacting quickly to clear up after a mis-timed back-header from Rea. Boyd also headed over another chance at the death.

Harriers boss Mark Yates will now be looking for more performances like this.

Harriers: Lewis, Mullins, Burgess, Hurren, Rea, Sedgemore, Fleming, Penn, Blackwood (Harkness, 90), Reynolds (Sheldon, 37), Newby (Russell, 78).

Attendance: 1,490.