The Bees fly back into Compton Park tomorrow.

Harborough Town return to Compton Park on Saturday, just a couple of weeks after winning here 3-1 in the league cup. The Bees built up a three-goal lead through Greg Usher, Alexis Alcindor and a Ben Williams penalty before Tony Bartlett bundled the ball into his own net after Nathan Burrows header had come down off the underside of the bar. It was a much different team Tom Chapman put out for the cup game as he opted to rest a number of players who had been carrying knocks, but since that game we have failed to score and lost to both Kirby Muxloe and Wellingborough Town on our travels. We still have a long list of injuries and at the time of writing I don’t know if any of these will be available for Saturday’s game. Strike pair Ryan Dove and Matt Long tore defences apart after the turn of the year, but have both missed a large part of the season so far through injuries whilst Ashley Clamp is taking a break to try and get over his. Rhys Taylor has had a recurrence of the injury that side-lined him for most of last season and Liam Tuck has been in and out with his, while I believe he is still away for this game anyway. Jacob Gartland is another long-term absentee, while Jake Cayton suffered a broken hand recently and is still missing. Jamie Gould hasn’t featured for a while because of his injury, while Ryan Cooke has also been absent for several weeks. All this adds up to a very tough time for Tom Chapman and Neil Champelovier and is reminiscent of the problem we faced at this time last season with changes every game.
Harborough come into the game in much better form having won a tricky game at Kirby Muxloe on Tuesday night as early second half goals from Aaron Preston and Ben Williams gave them a 2-0 win. This result left The Bees in twelfth spot with 14 points from ten games, five points clear of The Cooks having played a game more.

This clash brought the curtain down on the 2016/17 season the last time we met in the league with Cogenhoe taking the points thanks to a 2-1 win. Luke Stone put us ahead on 22 minutes but Dino Tuksar levelled things up twenty minutes from time. Harborough keeper Glen Giles played an absolute blinder and kept Cogenhoe at bay, but he couldn’t stop Ryan Dove grabbing a winner eight minutes from time.

The Reserves have Saturday off this week as Newport Pagnell Town have a Knock-Out cup tie, so instead they travel to Willen Road on Tuesday night at 7-45pm.

Updated 17:10 - 1 Sep 2019 by Paul Jackson