By KJ
June 26 2003

The big news at Kiddy this week is the draw for the League Cup, now known as the Carling Cup. harriers face a plum draw against Ipswich Town. Plus all the other news, or lack of it, until next week, when I think it will be very busy. FIXTURE & NEWS UPDATE
In the last week or so Kidderminster Harriers have discovered their opening opponents for the coming 2003/4 season.
The season kicks off on Saturday August 9th and like all previous Football League seasons, we start with a home game. Newly relegated Mansfield Town are the Harriers first opponents. This fixture sees the return of former Harriers Neil Mackenzie and Colin Larkin. The game could also see new signing Matt Gadesby make his debut against his former club. Our first away game is the trip to Darlington a week later. This of course will be Darlo’s first game in their brand new 27,000+ capacity stadium. I bet they were hoping for a bigger club than ourselves for such a game. Never mind, they owe us a high profile game, after last seasons no show of Faustino Asprilla, who was due to play for them at Aggborough last August. As the media circus planned to gather at Aggborough, the controversial Columbian did a U turn and didn’t sign in the end.
As you probably know we are unable to produce the fixture list in its entirety, for those who don’t know then the official website has the full list. The early highlight though, is the trip down to Cheltenhamshire on Bank Holiday Monday. Lets hope we can take a good following down there. Of course, this is the League highlight but the newly named Carling Cup has given us something of a plum draw. Its off down to Suffolk to face Ipswich Town in the first week of the season (w/c11/8/03). Probably the best draw we could have had would have been a home tie against one of the newly relegated Premiership Clubs, probably West Brom being the best. However beggars cant be choosers and the tie at Portman Road is something to look forward to. Ipswich are a team who I, like most fans, have a lot of time for. They always play the game the right way, and the Stadium will be impressive. In fact it will be interesting to see which is the best, Darlington’s new home, or Ipswich’s, which hosts an England friendly a couple of weeks after our visit.
Not much else to report on really. No other new signings yet although I do hear that Britt has a few irons in the fire. We will have to patient this week although I do predict a busy week next week. From what I hear, we could be getting up to four new faces. Whether these will be permanent, or loan signings I don’t know.Andy Bishop is rumoured to be on Britts wish list and anotehr former Saddler, Tony Barras has been linked to us as well. The delay is of course down to the way players contracts operate. You will probably remember last summer, with Sean Parrish, that we had to wait until early July. Most players contracts run until the end of June. If Harriers were to sign anyone now, they might end up paying for June wages. This wouldn’t be too bad, but its not as if they play in June is it.
Finally a couple of updates. Firstly, may we wish Ian Foster all the best at his new club, Chester City. Foster recently signed a two year contract with the Cheshire Club, who just missed out in the Conference play offs. He links up with another former Harrier, Ben Davies, who by all accounts had a good season for Chester. Secondly, the new stand now nears completion, and now nearly all of the seats are in. again a quick mention to Harriers Online. Phil has put some more photos of the stand for those who haven’t seen it. The latest batch also include some photos of the part demolished College. Which is very much on a Harriers theme, it looks like two Harrier Jumpjets have bombed it!
Once again, if anyone wants to contribute to the JumpJet Journal, leave you details on the message board.