Jekyll and Hiding

THE time has come for manager Mark Yates to pull on his boots again. Not necessarily for a playing come-back. Just to give these so-called professional players a collective kick up the backside.

Because, amazingly, after just.a dozen Conference games, these Jekyll and Hyde Harriers are already putting pressure on his position in the Aggborough hot-seat.

The feeling after another Grays day for Harriers is that Yates desperately needs to create a team that plays in his own image.

The manager won't thank me for saying this but they need to be abrasive, bloody-minded and downright stubborn - all the things he was and is both on and off the pitch.

After emerging at 10.30pm following a 45 minute post match post mortem , Yates all but admitted that his team were missing a leader who can get them going when the going gets tough.

And it certainly got tough on Tuesday night when they ran into a Grays team positively dripping with style and swagger.

The Harriers boss suggested that Yates the player would have made his mark on chief tormentor Aaron McLean as he and his team-mates terrorised Kidderminster from first whistle to last.

But the fact that none of his men showed either the will or the where-with-all to halt McLean and Co is extremely worrying.

At 2-0 down at the break and with the prospect of another Aldershot already in store, Yates needed somebody he could call upon to stop the rot, to shut up shop and to bust a gut to make sure Harriers' humiliation did not get any worse.

But no such player exists either on the field or among his squad which is an indication of how badly he is being let down by his senior pros and how difficult his summer of squad rebuilding threatens to be.

It is fast approaching D-day for many of Kidderminster's current campaigners, and providing he has some indication of his budget for next term, Yates now needs to decide who, if any, of the present players have a future at the club.

The theory that telling players they are no longer wanted will have an adverse affect on their morale and motivation just doesn't wash after this display because Harriers simply cannot get much worse.

Until the boss takes positive action to convince the fans he is capable of delivering their dream of success next season, the mumblings of discontent will only grow louder.

Kidderminster's incomprehensible incompetence should not detract from a dazzling display by Grays who produced the most compelling example of pass and move football that I have witnessed at this level, this season.

Mark Stimson's men re-ignited their play-off push in emphatic fashion with a five-star performance which gives them a great chance of being involved in the end-of-season promotion shake-up.

Having already bagged a showpiece trip to West Ham in the FA Trophy, Grays men have now firmly set their sights on a prestigious play-off final at Stoke City.

From first whistle until last they toyed with Harriers, producing fluent football that defied belief on Aggborough's pudding of a pitch.

Grays took the lead in the sixth minute through a freak goal that took everybody by surprise - not least confidence-strapped keeper John Danby.

Most of the ground were only half watching when Danby somehow contrived to kick an innocuous punt upfield against the back of Dennis Oli and the skillful striker gratefully rolled the ball past the stranded stopper.

The referee and his linesman with the chequered flag seemed baffled about what had happened and although Harriers could not blame the result on the officials the men in black were similarly confused through out the match.

In a surprisingly open, end-to-end encounter, Athletic made it two on 32 minutes when, with left back Johnny Harkness nowhere to be seen, Michael Kightly popped up unmarked on the right side of the box to fire a crisp finish in the left corner of the net.

Things went from bad to worse for Harriers three minutes after the break when Glenn Poole added goal number three with a 25-yard free kick which clipped the wall and deceived Danby after Johnny Mullins had fouled Oli.

Danby's night to forget continued when he hauled down substitute Mark DeBolla in the box on 70 minutes after McLean's probing pass and Stuart Thurgood sent the keeper the wrong way from the penalty spot.

And Grays completed the rout two minutes from time when substitute Gary Hooper beat the static defence to ram the ball past Danby for number five.

Grays boss Stimson was kind to Kidderminster after the match, insisting that his side were so slick they would have annihilated any side in the Conference on that form.

But he also admitted that Athletic could have reached double figures against a Harriers team who just 72 hours earlier had beaten promotion-chasing Hereford.

The defensive meanness that had served them so well against the Bulls went missing as Oli headed a good chance against the bar and Kidderminster's chief tormentor Aaron McLean forced a hat-trick of saves out of Danby. But the visitors did not have it all their own way and Harriers carved enough chances to have drawn 5-5 had they remembered how to score.

Jon Newby rolled a shot into the side-netting from a tight angle after a poor back pass from Jamie Stuart, while Gavin Hurren wastefully directed a free header wide from eight yards before the break.

And in the second-half Ashley Bayes pulled off a stunning reflex save to repel Lee Thompson's header from point blank range with Andy Sambrook producing a last ditch block to deny Gareth Sheldon a certain goal.

A goal would have been little consolation for the Aggborough faithful who have now seen nine of them fly into their net in the past two home games with Stevenage next up on Saturday.

Unsurprisingly Harriers fans turned to the boos at half and full time as the lowest home league crowd for more than half a decade voiced their growing frustrations.