PAUL MOROZ from Torquay Boys Grammar School is currently on work experience at the Herald Express. Paul is also a Gulls fan through and through, so when he went up to Kidderminster he came back and penned this snapshot from the terraces.
“EVER since I watched my first away game, Torquay United against Exeter City on Boxing Day last year, I’ve preferred away games to those at home.
For starters, there’s the acceptance and loyalty of fellow away fans. I can remember walking down a street in Salisbury, when a man I’d never met before gave me a friendly greeting and burst into chat. Why? We were both wearing the same yellow shirt with Sparkworld emblazoned across the front.
Secondly, there’s the commitment of the fans and the noise they make at away fixtures, because everyone there has travelled so many miles to get there, they want to have a good time (and tell the referee what they think of him).
So I welcomed the chance to get a lift up to Kidderminster on Thursday, for my first away game of this season.
Traditionally, the merry bunch I travel to away games with rate the team we’re visiting on a number of factors; the score, the fans, the stadium, the town and the local chippy. Being a night fixture, we didn’t have time to look for a chippy so we piled straight into the ground, and ate there.
I missed the Kidderminster game last season, but I had been promised that the food was good. I had been recommended ‘The Famous Aggborough Soup’ the cottage pie and a bacon, egg and sausage concoction my friend Nick had eloquently dubbed ‘heart disease in a bun’.
I opted for the cottage pie and was very pleased with the result, even at £4 a pop (although how anyone could pop twice I don’t know).
The match started brightly in our favour, the rain began to fall but we were in a covered terrace which echoed brilliantly and kept us nice and dry.
Carlisle came close twice early on, and for the first twenty minutes or so, Kiddy (as they’re affectionately know) didn’t get a look-in.
United’s build-up play was more mixed than usual, with a lot more of it on the floor, but they failed to make too many good chances.
Kidderminster’s only outlet was lively winger Martin Brittain, who made several runs down the right-hand side but was kept in check by Kevin Nicholson, who blocked many of his crosses.
After twenty-eight minutes, some poor marking from an otherwise reliable Steve Woods let Kiddy striker Matt Barnes-Homer through on goal. With Barnes-Homer eight yards out and unmarked Poke suddenly looked very small in the United goal, but he was spared by some divine intervention by Chris Robertson, who had a very solid game.
Poke was called into action twice again, and replied brilliantly, as the home side put on a spell of pressure, which eventually told.
A counter-attack coming, once again through Brittain found some clear ground as Nicholson had been pushed up. Lee Mansell, despite catching the winger, lunged in too early and missed the ball, clipping Brittain’s heels.
He continued to hurtle down the United left flank and drill a cross through the box, which was tapped home at the far post by Barnes-Homer, beyond the desperate attempts of Poke and Ellis to keep it out.
At this point came the only pause in a twenty-minute chant of ‘Yellow Army’, but the team didn’t seem too worried by this setback and kept up the pressure, so the chanting was soon underway again.
The second half saw, among other chances, a Sills pull-back across goal miss Hargreaves’ left foot by inches as it rolled agonisingly behind him, a Benyon shot from a tight angle that Kiddy ‘keeper Bartlett had to rush out to block.
Although United had more chances, Kidderminster did a better job of the ones they had, and in the end it proved decisive.
United may have scored more today if they’d have shot more, but favoured playing the ball out wide to cross in and head, which - I think - cost us a game which could easily have gone either way.
Despite the result, the build-up play in the United midfield was good, and at times, top-class. I was pleased to see Carlisle and Carayol finally running at defenders, because we know they can beat them and they did. There was one thing missing from the United squad and that was someone with that striker’s instinct - and touch of selfishness - the conviction to shoot when in a good position. I think, perhaps, we miss Chris Zebroski.
My man of the match: Chris Robertson.”
