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, in our monthly feature ‘Harriers Heritage’, some more treasured memories are rekindled from match programmes from yesteryear.
LOCAL RADIO personality Dave Bradley sparked Kidderminster Harriers’ fans into rummaging through their drawers after I wrote about a pile of old matchday programmes he gave me late last year.
I featured Dave’s collection in this column in November and since then, several regular readers have been in touch after finding more Harriers memorabilia while clearing out their cluttered cupboards.
And what they have unearthed has allowed me to take a few more steps along memory lane.
Since ‘Bradders’ handed over his programmes, I’ve had to find extra space to accommodate an expanding clutch of yesteryear issues which have been passed on to me by a number of Harriers old-timers.
And several of the publications go further back than Bradders’ bundle of programmes which he acquired while reporting on the Aggborough club’s home and away matches for BBC Radio Hereford and Worcester from 1989 into the early 1990s.
Included among those I’ve been given by ‘Harriers’ Heritage’ followers are two in particular which caught my eye.
Both, sold on matchday for 20p and 25p respectively, were printed for home fixtures in the early 1980s.
The first one was for a Southern League Premier Division encounter against Waterlooville on Saturday, December 11, 1982, and the other for an Alliance Premier League clash with Yeovil Town on Monday, September 19, 1983.
The matches produced mixed fortunes with manager John Chambers’ men beating Waterlooville 2-0, but losing 2-1 to Yeovil.
Victory over Waterlooville was during a season in which Harriers finished second in the table, but went up as title-winning AP Leamington were denied promotion due to their ground failing to meet the necessary grading criteria.
Chambers’ side’s start to life in the Alliance Premier League proved tough as was highlighted when the league table was reproduced in the Yeovil programme.
It showed them rock bottom with just one point from their opening six matches.
Their fortunes did improve, however, and they finally finished the season in tenth spot.
Harriers’ poor start to the campaign was enough to turn the Aggborough faithful to drink – and if the advertisements in their programmes were anything to go by then Ansells mild was the best choice.
Several local companies supported the club by placing adverts in the programmes although many of them are now long forgotten names.
The same cannot be said, however, for players’ names that appear in both editions, including Phil Mullen, Archie Richards, John Horne, Martin Gavin, Graham Jones and John Powell.
A couple of other readers have chipped in with programmes for two December away matches – at Bromsgrove Rovers for a Vauxhall Conference clash in 1993 and a Coca-Cola League Two encounter at Cheltenham Town in 2004.
The Cheltenham issue contains a feature on Stuart Watkiss who had been appointed as Harriers’ manager the previous month.
He left Aggborough at the end of 2005, but is now back at the club as assistant to current boss Adam Murray.
In their programme, Bromsgrove wished Harriers good luck in their forthcoming FA Cup third round tie at Birmingham City on Saturday, January 8, 1994.
And what happened on that memorable giant-killing date is still talked about at Aggborough to this day.
