VENUE #52 KIDDERMINSTER HARRIERS Aggborough Stadium

VANARAMA

CONFERENCE

Kidderminster... 2

Gateshead... 1

Saturday 6th September

             2014

@ Aggborough Stadium

        Kidderminster

    

      When Planning this journey to Kidderminster I was surprised to find out that it could mean having to change trains twice.  A distance of 25 miles and the prospect of having to catch three trains there and back was a little harrowing to me and so I started to look at various other routes that I could take.  The initial route as laid down by national rail enquiries meant that I should start my journey from Walsall to change at Birmingham New Street for Droitwich Spa and change again for Kidderminster.  After fiddling about with the National Rail website I found that I could catch the 12:01 from Walsall to Wolverhampton and elite at Smethwick Galton Bridge where I could catch a train directly to Kidderminster and cut out one train from my journey.  This was a better prospect although it wasn't much quicker than the three train route it meant that it was one less worry about having to hope that your train was on time so as to meet your connection scenario, although the train was three minutes late pulling out of Birmingham New street which meant I'd only got 3 mins when I got to Galton Bridge, which was an unfamiliar station to me, to hunt around for the platform to catch the Kidderminster train off.

   

The East stand

Having arrived at my destination safely and on schedule I decided to find a place where I could eat and take advantage of the toilets as there was none at Kidderminster station and so I Googled public toilets in Kidderminster on my phone and came up with Morrisons which wasn't too far away from the station or the ground.  The loo's were great but the queue for food at their cafe was horrendous and slow moving and so I decided to move on to the ground and hopefully get something to eat there.

     Moving on to today's game, Harrier's manager Gary Whild makes one change from the team that beat Dover 1-0 at the Crabble Athletic ground last Saturday, Cheyenne Dunkley comes in for Aman Verma who moves to the bench.  Gary Mills names an unchanged Gateshead side to the one that beat Chester City 2-1 at the International Stadium also last Saturday.

     It was non league day today and so Kidderminster dropped the price of entry to their terraces at both ends of the ground from £14 to £10 and so I decided to take advantage of this offer and stand with the home supporters behind the goal in the North end, I soon moved closer to the corner flag to the right side of the goal as a young lad kept whacking me in the face with a big red flag.

     Nothing much to report about in the first half as both teams seemed to lack the ability to create goal chances and made a lot of wasted passes around the pitch to the opposition.  I don't think either goalkeeper had to make a save which was unfortunate as I had my camera at the ready hoping to catch some goalmouth action.

A corner for Kidderminster attacking the North stand

     I decided to put my camera away for the second half as this game smacked of a 0-0 draw which would be my first in three seasons of travelling around the grounds but then after 20 seconds of the restart Kidderminster score, Craig Reid found himself free in the Gateshead penalty area and turned to plant the ball in the net giving keeper Adam Bartlett no chance.  Three minutes later and it was 2-0, a cross from the right to the far post saw the impressive Nathan Blissett rise higher than the rest to strike a powerful header home from close range.  Jon Shaw pulled one back in the 64th minute for Gateshead but it turned out to be a mere consolation

   

The Harriers Arms

Aggborough Stadium is situated in an unfortunate named road, "Hoo Road", makes you feel as though you're going to visit the Grinch who stole Christmas.  It has a 6,238 capacity of which around half are seated and though it was built in the 1890's looks quite clean and tidy, MODERN, probably due to all the work that was done in the late 1990's and in the early stages of the new Millennium.  Two stands run along the touchline the East stand and the Reynolds stand, both are single tiered and covered, part of the East stand is for away support use.  At either end of the ground behind the goals are two small terraces which are also covered, the North which is used to house the home support and the South which is for the use of the away followers.

     There is a supporters club where away fans are welcome to drink and also behind the Reynolds stand there is a pub called the Harriers Arms of which the Gateshead fans were making use of from what I could hear when passing.

     The club shop is right by the main entrance not far from the Harriers Arms and was being manned by the managing director of the club, well that's what he told me when I went in to by my usual souvenirs from my journey's, a home scarf and a match programme.

                                                         Match Details