By Lee Birch
September 9 2003

The publisher of Clix to Harriers Lee Birch takes time to share his thoughts on Andy Bishop with TheSaddlersFC. Bishop is spending another month with the third division out fit.

Bish arrived at Aggborough in November 2002, initially on a month’s loan to compete with the popular Drewe Broughton (who had recently ended his long barren scoring run with a header in our 4-0 away win at Swansea) in deciding who should partner the prolific Dane Bo Henriksen. At the time, none of the Harriers fans knew who the hell ‘Andy Bishop’ was, but he had good hair, which is always a good start. However, before many Kiddy fans had actually realised we had signed him, Bish had already headed a crucial equalising goal in a tricky away game at Torquay. Bish was soon a favourite with the Harriers following.

Impressive Bishop performances soon followed as Bish established a reputation for a skilful and lively forward play. One of the highlights of Bish’s initial Aggborough stay probably came when he arrived onto the field as a second half sub with Kiddy trailing 2-0 at home to struggling Shrewsbury Town in a heated local derby. A couple of brilliant jinking runs and superb balls across the 6-yard box supplied fellow forward Drewe Broughton with a brace to settle the scores at 2-2. A match-winning brace at home to play-off rivals Bury soon followed, as did a thumping finish against second placed Hartlepool in a 2-2 draw as Bish really started to find his feet in Division Three. However, sadly for him this came just as the season was coming to a close and Kiddy were again finding themselves just a whisker away from a ply-off spot.

With the end of 2002-03 saw Bish return to The Bescot, 442 Magazine among others predicting a successful season at Walsall for Bishop. However, the arrival of Paul Merson and the fact Andy wasn’t really involved in their pre-season meant Bish was again heading out on loan. Scottish clubs were said to be interested, but with the departures of strikers Drewe Broughton and Ian Foster from Kiddy and the failure of former Saddlers forward Kyle Lightbourne to impress whilst on trial, he was again heading to Aggborough - much to the delight of the Harriers fans.

In Harriers second game of 03/04 we found ourselves deadlocked at 0-0 in front of 11,600 at the brand new Reynolds Arena in Darlington. The call went out to Bish who replaced John Williams at half time. Within 5 minutes of the re-start Bish had already helped carve out the opening goal in the new arena, after being fouled on the edge of the area, Welshman Danny Williams thundered the ball home for 1-0. Soon afterwards Bish was darting towards the Darlo goal before lofting a superb effort over Quakers ‘keeper Andy Collett from long-range, 2-0 and Bish was back.

Sadly for the Harriers fans this was it as far as Bishop goals went, not suited to the long-ball style that our players for some bizarre reason tend to be sucked into Bishop was struggling to get into games and as a result found himself on the bench at Bristol Rovers, his loan was due to expire after that game and many Harriers fans expected him to be heading back up the M6. However, he will be at Aggborough for another month at least and as long as the Harriers players revert to their favoured passing style in large enough doses then hopefully Bishop will again be terrorising Division Three defenders…

Follow Bishops progress on Clix to Harriers