FANS of Worcester City and Kidderminster Harriers will have had familiar feelings this week after losing two of their best players.

It is only natural for a football supporter to wonder, ‘What if?’ as the conveyor belt of talent rumbles along with little long-term success for either Worcestershire side.

As soon as one talent emerges, the likes of City manager Carl Heeley and Harriers boss Gary Whild are immediately having to discover the next rough diamond.

Former Romulus winger Marvin Johnson, one of the bright sparks for Kidderminster this season, stepped up to the Scottish Premiership with Motherwell after helping fire an increasingly unlikely Conference play-off bid with 10 goals.

Meanwhile, Aggborough tenants Worcester lost Graham Hutchison to Conference top-five hopefuls Halifax with the centre-half being one of the heroes of their fantastic FA Cup run, which produced a 2-1 win at Midlands giants Coventry.

The latest five-figure cash injection was added to City’s sale of George Williams to Barnsley earlier in the season, while Harriers had desperately tried to balance the books by taking cash from Bristol Rovers and Oxford United for Nathan Blissett and Chey Dunkley respectively.

In recent seasons, Harriers have received substantial six-figure fees for attacking talents Jamille Matt (Fleetwood) and Worcestershire lad Joe Lolley (Huddersfield).

But Kidderminster frittered away too much money last season with the bizarre sacking of manager Steve Burr and even stranger appointment of Andy Thorn, who eventually had to be paid off too.

Harriers are faced with cutting their budget for 2015-16 so it seems they will have to focus even more on improving and then selling young players.

Steady City never seem to budge from the second tier of the non-league pyramid these days, but did produce some long-overdue excitement for their fans through the cup run.

But the mid-table club’s priority has to be returning to Worcester, which will mean continuing to sell off the family silver and the restricted on-field progress that goes hand-in-hand with that policy.

One thing is for sure — both clubs would be worrying about the unpleasant end of the table with lesser management teams, so let’s just hope they can keep hold of them.