A look ahead to Saturday’s trip to Spennymoor…
By Matty Paddock - 04/10/2024
Posted 2 years ago
HARRIERS travel to Spennymoor Town on Saturday looking to put a dent in the Moors’ impressive home league form.
Spennymoor sit in 15th place in the table, five places behind Harriers put just one point shy of the Reds, signalling just how tight life is in National League North.
A true strength of theirs is their performance at Brewery Field which, since January has been nothing short of exceptional.
The Moors haven’t tasted defeat on their own patch in National League North since Brackley triumphed there on January 6th – an unbeaten 15-match stretch following since, including eleven consecutive wins straddling the end of last season and the beginning of 2024-25.
They have been held by their last two visitors in Brackley and Hereford, though, giving the Reds hope they, too, can come away from one of the longer journeys of the season with something.
Looking ahead, Phil Brown said: “It’s a good league, it’s competitive, I like it – you get a different challenge week in, week out.
“We know that Spennymoor’s strength lies in the home territory, so we’ve got to go behind enemy lines as it were, to maybe put a spanner in the works to a certain extent.
“We know the way they play, their style of football and at home they are a very, very strong team, but we have to break that down and be tactically prepared.
“The physicality of the National League North won’t change. It’s one of those games where you won’t win it until the 85th, 90th minute but that’s life on the road in National League North.”
Harriers, will be without injured pair Paul Downing and Ben Beresford tomorrow, while Alex Penny will be assessed having come off at half time during the game against Buxton in midweek.
Brown added that Luke Summerfield is remaining positive after suffering a broken leg on Tuesday.
Harriers must proceed north without the influential midfielder, and the boss was adamant he wants to see an improvement in the side’s form on the road.
“We’ve got to learn to travel, we haven’t travelled really well,” he added.
“We started off well at Darlington and I was expecting it to go on and on after that, but our fortress is Aggborough and we’ve got to start travelling properly and start being mentally and physically prepared for tough encounters like Spennymoor on Saturday.”
Saturday’s is a first trip to Spennymoor since the February 2023 outing that saw an outrageous Amari Morgan-Smith goal help Harriers to a 2-1 victory.
That was the solitary success in five attempts there for the Reds dating back to 2018.
Kick off on Saturday is at 3:00pm.
Away travel remains on sale up to and including Friday, while Spennymoor have confirmed the availability of online tickets for those wishing to purchase in advance.
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