By KJ
September 28 2003

Harriers remain in the lower reaches of Division Three after a mauling from the Tigers.Kiddy's 6-1 defeat was their worst since joing the football league. Who is to blame? BAD SPELL CONTINUES
Harriers bad spell continued yesterday with a record league defeat at Hull City. The 6-1 scoreline was the worst harriers have encountered since their elevation to the League. So the crisis continues, will it ever end ? This defeat has left some Kidder fans calling for the head of manager, Ian Britton. Is it solely down to Britt ? Some have lade the blame with the board of directors. It is an endless cycle of blame.
Yesterday saw Harriers adopt a 4-5-1 formation, in an attempt to stifle title favourites Hull. After going a goal down after 5 minutes Harriers did draw level, John Williams netted his first ever goal for Harriers. Harriers then held out and played well before falling behind on the stroke of half time. The second half eventually saw an avalanche towards the end as the Tigers roared home to victory.
So who is to blame ? The Manager ? Is Ian Britton the man for the job ? Well he did ok for us last season didn’t he ? Its easy to knock the boss, after all we have got the lowest budget in the entire league. Yes, Britt must shoulder some of the blame. We really are short in a couple of vital areas. We need probably three types of player ideally, or last two. Firstly we need a big centre forward, someone who Bo or Bish can play off. Yes we’ve got big John Williams, but at 35, is he the answer? Basically, a players not too different to former striker, Drewe Broughton, but someone who can weigh in with more goals. Some say letting Drewe go was a mistake, but considering his supposed wages, then I suppose he had to go coupled with his form at Southend, where he isn’t exactly rubbing our face in it, is he ?(lets hope that continues when he returns in a couple of weeks !).
Of course, such forwards are hard to come by, as we discovered with Mikeal Antoine Curier’s flying visit last week before joining Rochdale and promptly scoring on his debut for them. Another area is midfield. Midfield ? We’ve got more midfielders than a bar football team I here you cry. No, the attacking midfielder/ provider. Players such as JJ Melligan, who can play box to box behind the strikers, or the creative type, such as Richie Appleby. They are very rare indeed and are probably above our current budget. Another department is central defence. At this level, a giant defender is very useful. Finding those are easy, finding one who can play a bit is difficult, if not impossible. We try and play football on the floor, but most other teams in this division don’t.
So the above is pretty obvious really. I believe there are two ways to play in division three, or three I suppose, which is a mixture of the two styles. You can play like ourselves, or try to play I should say at the moment. This is trying to pass your way to success. Then there is the other method, which is basically route one, such as Lincoln City. Obviously no one plays total route one, it is mixed in with a bit of passing play. The main difference is, the passing game is much harder. Not just in its actual play, but mainly in the standard of players you need to do it. look at Lincoln, fair play to them, a lot of their squad have been recruited from non league, and look at their success. In contrast to our current squad, where quite a few have been recruited from higher up teams reserves and academies. I’m not suggesting we change our way of playing just pointing out a major fact. Our way of playing is very difficult for this level.
With our current plight, which I must say is as worse as anything I’ve seen in all my years supporting Kiddy, the blame is being passed around. Lets face it it’s a combination of factors. In fact, we are performing exactly how we should be for our budget and attendances. Some blame the board for not putting more money in. I think if they had it, they would spend it and would probably allow someone with the right intentions join them so that person could put there hand in their pocket as well.
Of course the players have to shoulder some of the blame. Are all of them committed to Harriers ? Some are but I suspect others cant be bothered, or just go with the flow of things.
So it will be an interesting time this week to see what happens. Will they get a new manager in ? Or maybe an assistant for Britt, which I believe would be a good thing. Maybe some tycoon will take pity on us and come in and bankroll us to promotion, you never know (Roman, any rich relatives available ?)
I must confess, I thought, when we were promoted, we would get better gates than we do. Its no good moping about it though. However, on the subject of blame, there are a few I could blame. At a recent game I noticed a small lad, with a Man U top on. Great, at least he was at the game. I remember him celebrating their half time score, which was announced over the tannoy. As I say fair play to him for being at Harriers but think of the other young lads watching Utd (and others) on telly. The thing is, in probably 99.9% of cases, they will never, ever see United play live, maybe once at the Villa. they might as well tell their friends they going to date Kylie, same thing really, just TV.