Chris Oldnall has been following his home-town football club Kidderminster Harriers since the early 1960s and he has also been chronicling their fluctuating fortunes for around 60 years.
Here, Chris brings us his latest taste of nostalgia on the Harriers in our monthly feature ‘Harriers Heritage’.
It cost me just 10p to take a trip down memory lane with Kidderminster Harriers.
And that’s all thanks to a Kidderminster town centre charity shop where I found an excellent book buried in a deep pile of similarly priced publications.
What a terrific find it turned out to be – particularly for those interested in Harriers’ history.
A double-page spread headlined ‘Harriers overcame league snub to achieve promotion’ rolled back the years, as did a photograph of the club’s former secretary Ray Mercer. Much-missed Ray, who died in August 1995, was known as ‘Mr Kidderminster’ and had his ashes scattered at his beloved Harriers’ Aggborough ground.
The book, published nearly a quarter of a century ago, puts Ray’s busy lifestyle under the spotlight in a full page feature which underlines his devotion to Harriers whom he served with distinction for more than 35 years.
A road near the National League North club’s ground is named after him – Ray Mercer Way.
It’s a fitting tribute to a man who was born in Balham, south-west London, but made Kidderminster his home and Harriers his favourite football team.
As the article points out: “It would be fair to say that Ray’s dedication to the club helped lay the foundations for its future success.”
It adds: “The day he died, after collapsing in his back garden, was typical of the way he had lived his life.
“He had been at Harriers’ Aggborough ground in the morning, spent the rest of the day at a County Championship cricket match at Chester Road, even finding time for some live broadcasting on hospital radio.
“Heartfelt tributes came from all parts of the local community and 500 people attended his funeral service, in recognition of a man with a real enthusiasm for life.
“Perhaps the one tribute that would have given ‘Mr Kidderminster’ a particular sense of satisfaction was having his ashes scattered at his beloved Aggborough.”
The book, produced by former Kidderminster newspaper journalist Peter McMillan and his fellow journalist wife Christine, who now live in Spain, also zooms in on
Harriers’ promotion to the Football League after winning the Nationwide Conference in the 1999/2000 season.
Photographs of delighted supporters celebrating the club’s memorable achievement accompany other snapshots of the triumphant players revelling in the glory. They are also frozen in time on the balcony of Kidderminster Town Hall during a civic reception when the then-manager Jan Molby proudly showed off the title-winning trophy to the cheering crowd.
Harriers’ well-deserved promotion helped cushion the massive disappointment the club experienced six years earlier when they were cruelly denied entry into the Football League because a stand at Aggborough was controversially deemed to be below the standards required.
The club spent five years in the then Third Division before returning to their more familiar surroundings in non-League football.
Publication of the book, which also features several yesteryear characters from all walks of life in the Wyre Forest area, was overseen by Clive Joyce, a former Kidderminster newspaper editor who has been a regular visitor to Aggborough on match days for around 30 years.
My recent 10p purchase would have cost £4.95 when the book first went on sale in 2001.
