After the garbage served up at Dagenham at the weekend I have to admit I can’t wait for the season to end.

I’m fed up of making long journeys all over the country only to have my day spoiled by the men-in-red come 3 o’clock. Saturday’s game was another non-entity with the players already apparently already on their holidays; Dagenham weren’t much better but we made them look good, they created a few chances and we let them take them, all three goals were down to poor defending.

There wasn’t one player in the starting line-up who appeared to realise that he was playing for his Harriers career. Then again, maybe they did and just don’t want to be given new contracts for next season. The only player who seemed to realise the importance of the game, or at least his part in it, was Lee Thompson who came on as a sub at the start of the second half. His performance was lively and perhaps, if we hadn’t already been three down, he could have got us back into the match.

Given the performance levels for most of the season, in fact, I wouldn’t be too keen on keeping many of this squad. Having said that, I’m not too keen on the idea of a wholesale clearout and starting over from scratch yet again. It hasn’t worked for the last two seasons and given the level of finance available it probably won’t work again next.

For what it’s worth, these are the ones I’d keep: Danby, Harkness (but not if somebody better can be found), Burgess, Sedgemore (only because he’s on a contract), Reynolds, Thompson, Penn, Hurren, Mullins. I think that the likes of Blackwood, Fleming, Russell and Sheldon are all more than good enough but don’t show it often enough and we need players who can perform on a regular basis to the neccessary standard. I’d like to see some of the kids given a chance; Ash Walker, Tom Byrne have already appeared but to them you can add Mitch Butler and Scott Eaton. In my opinion it would be best to have a squad of 16 quality players and make up the rest with the kids.

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I thought that it was quite possibly the dullest game I have watched all season but ugly as it was the three points gained by beating Cambridge (again) mean that Conference football will be at Aggborough again next season.

Maybe if Luke Reynolds had buried his first-minute chance it would have been different but it went rapidly downhill and it was not until the 75th minute that we managed get a shot on target. By then, however, we were one-up thanks to Mark Peters heading into his own net and it was just a question of holding on to the slender lead to take the points. I know that if we were winning 1-0 every week and top of the league we’d take a different view but I couldn’t watch too much of that so-called entertainment that we saw yesterday.

At least there’s only two more games to go for the first team and then Mr Yates can get on with bringing in new players and getting rid of most of the dross he already has ready for what has to be a better season next time round, we’re due a good one now.

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Literally!! The smell from the river as you stand at the bottom end of the ground at Canvey is disgraceful, and it wasn’t helped much by the Harriers performance on the pitch.

What seems like an eternity ago I wrote that we were getting harder to beat. Seems like I spoke too soon; in the eleven games since then we’ve won two and lost five. Friday’s game at Canvey summed us up pretty well: slow to start; sloppy defending gifting goals away and then deciding too late that perhaps playing wouldn’t be such a bad idea.

Far too often this season that has been the case and there are far too few positives to be drawn from games such as these. Positives from the game at Canvey were the performances of Luke Reynolds, Ashley Walker and Tom Byrne. It’s taken ages for Mark Yates to take an interest in the current youth squad and he’s rarely to be seen at their games but at least he has now taken the plunge and given them their chance, even if it was only because he couldn’t send out a full team thanks to the stupidity of messrs Mullins and Blackwood at York.

I thought Ashley looked a little nervous on his debut, he did little wrong and will benefit from a one or two more games but Tom played well despite his lack of height which I have always thought would keep him from making it into the team. There was one amusing moment when he tried his usual trickery to take on Stuart Bimson; when he does it in the youth team he leaves the defender for dead but Bimson is older and wiser – an considerably bigger – than the players he comes up against in the Floodlit League, Bimson stood still and little Tom bounced off him and ended up in a heap on the floor. Tom had the last laugh, however, setting up Reynolds’ goal.

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