Stevenage Borough 1(0) v (2)2 Kidderminster Harriers

An excellent performance by Harriers saw them record their ninth away win of the season and take an early psychological advantage ahead of next month's FA Trophy final.

Mark Yates made a few changes to the expected Harriers line-up with Russ Penn partnering Iyseden Christie in attack and Jake Sedgemore and Glenn Wilson taking the central midfield positions.  The 'new' formation worked well with the lively Penn getting involved well and causing problems for the home defence and Sedgemore giving arguably his best performance of the season, although all players gave good performances and it would be unfair to single out just one or two.

The early stages of the game were low key and the match had a real end-of-season feel to it.  In fact it didn't really come to life until Harriers took the lead on 21 minutes; a cross from the right was knocked down at the far post by Michael Blackwood into the path of Penn who swept it into the bottom corner of the net.

Borough's response was not long in coming; highly-rated striker Steve Morison jinked his way through the Harriers defence on the left and fed the ball into the path of Craig Dobson on the opposite flank but his shot was hit straight at Scott Bevan.  Sedgemore could have doubled the advantage on the half-hour mark; picking up the ball deep he carried it forward but after a neat one-two with Wilson his shot from the edge of the penalty area was straight at Alan Julian in the home goal.

Dobson created an opening for an equaliser straight away, his cross from the right found veteran winger Steve Guppy arriving late at the far post but he could only steer the ball wide. In an end-to-end spell of the game Harriers went straight back to the other end of the field and after good work by Christie to set up Simon Russell who was upended by Mark Hughes as he twisted and turned in the penalty area.  After some discussion between Christie and Jonny Harkness over who was to take the penalty Christie sent Julian the wrong way from the spot to record his 12th goal of the season.  Before the interval Stevenage had another good chance to score, Dobson's cross from the right found Morison at the near post who had beaten Mark Creighton to the ball only to see his shot clip the post.

Stevenage got themselves back into the game less than a minute into the second half; a deep cross from the left found Ronnie Henry beyond the far post who drilled a low shot back across goal and into the bottom corner.  After clearly having had a half-time rollicking Stevenage were much more fired up in the second half and could have drawn level soon afterwards; a throw from the left was not cleared and fell to Mark Hughes whose shot on the turn was turned round the post for a corner by Bevan.  Then, minutes later, Dobson showed a good turn of pace to get past Creighton but Bevan came out quickly to save well at his feet.

The game was spoiled by the refereeing of Mr Cook who managed to show yellow cards to eight Harriers players and none to Stevenage, many of his decisions were inconsistent, particularly when Morison was not spoken to after launching a volley of abuse to the linesman who flagged him offside, or not speaking to any Stevenage players after the mass brawl sparked by Barry Fuller's challenge on Russell that ended with a Harriers free-kick but Russell and Blackwood in the book.