THERE aren’t many sides who can sell their top goalscorer for £300,000 in January, then maintain their form so one of his fellow frontmen and manager pick up league sponsor’s awards for February.
Then again, this Kidderminster Harriers team crafted by Steve Burr – named Blue Square Bet Premier manager of the month on Thursday for five wins out of five – is a bit special.
I was at Cambridge in late September when Harriers picked up their first win of the season. It was their 11th game.
Kiddy are taking the phrase ‘Marathon, not a sprint’ to extremes. They’d given the field a headstart by losing every one of their opening five, remember, then plodded along for another couple of miles by drawing their next five.
After taking just five points from a possible 30, they’d sprinted to 62 before yesterday’s home date with relegation fighters Ebbsfleet from that night at the Abbey.
I was en route to see them at Nuneaton on Tuesday when an accident blocked the A507 and forced an about-turn.
For Burr and his Aggborough side, their route to the most unlikely promotion has seen similar hazards – the early defeats, Jamille Matt’s work permit issues, Exodus Geohaghon’s early U-turn to Mansfield, injuries to key players like Jack Byrne and Matt’s sale to Fleetwood just weeks after returning – but they’ve managed to motor on regardless.
Tuesday’s 1-0 win at Liberty Way was their 15th in 17 matches since, with a nice touch of symmetry, they saw off the club with whom Burr started his managerial career 12 years ago by a solitary goal at home on November 10.
Anthony Malbon (pictured above celebrating a goal against Forest Green) scored his sixth in five matches in midweek to land the player award, but Burr is still missing Matt.
“They are totally different types of players,” says the ex-Boro, Hucknall, Northwich and Stalybridge boss. “In terms of goals, yes, Anthony’s filled a hole, but I still feel that Jamille is a big miss for us.
“What’s covered over that is the fact that we’ve carried on where we left off when he was here, so people will say ‘You haven’t missed him one bit’.
“But what the money we got for him enabled me to do, for the first time in my three years at the club, is strengthen the squad by using it for wages, not the inflated fees that clubs wanted to sell players.”
Gillingham’s experienced midfielder Danny Jackman was one recruit, while Macclesfield striker Amari Morgan-Smith was brought in on loan.
Their charge has been relentless and has had respected coaches like Richard Money branding Kidderminster the best Conference side he’s ever seen. Money wasn’t at the Abbey helm when Kiddy won there in game 11, and unbelievably some Harriers fans wished Burr wasn’t at the time.
Ryan Rowe, one of many plucked from lower leagues at Stourbridge, scored a hat-trick as a second-half sub that night.
Left-winger Marvin Johnson, signed from Romulus, is one of their biggest threats while centre-half Chey Dunkley has been one of the finds of the season from Hednesford.
Oh, and let’s not forget 12-goal new top scorer Malbon, who came from Newcastle – Town, rather than United!
“We’ve had to virtually rebuild a group of players every summer at Kiddy and sometimes it takes a bit of time for lads to settle in, especially lads who are stepping up a couple of leagues,” says Burr.
“It takes time, but unfortunately these days in football, everybody wants instant success. Everybody picks the right side at quarter-to-five, don’t they?
“We’ve given ourselves a great opportunity to achieve something, but I know how quickly things can change going to places like Grimsby, Wrexham, Newport and Luton, which will be very tough games for us in the run-in.”
They will be, no doubt, but the way Kiddy are going, they have every chance of emulating Graham Allner’s 1993-94 and Jan Molby’s 1999-2000 Aggborough champions, who lost five of their opening seven and six matches respectively.
“Hey, if it happens to us I’ll take that all day long,” smiles the England C assistant-manager.
Like Terry Brown at AFC Wimbledon, winning promotion could be the only way a man who’s spent his entire career outside the top 92 will ever get there, with all the teams he played for now in Non-League after Macclesfield’s relegation, and bigger clubs reluctant to take a chance.
All neutrals will be hoping he makes it.
