Muristek
Somehow, West Ham slithered out of this barnstorming FA Cup tie with their place in the fifth round secure. After Declan Rice, who was sent on by David Moyes at half-time to bring some order to an abject performance, struck in second-half stoppage time to take the game to extra time, Jarrod Bowen prevented penalties by popping up at the back post to snaffle a 121st-minute winner with 13 seconds of added time left to play. The Kidderminster manager, Russell Penn, could only pull his snood over his face, while his assistant, Jimmy O’Connor, swivelled on the touchline in disbelief. West Ham had got out of jail to avoid an embarrassing exit and burst sixth-tier Kidderminster’s bubble, after Alex Penny sparked delirium by opening the scoring.
For Kidderminster, an extraordinary journey that began against Sporting Khalsa in the second qualifying round of the competition in front of a crowd of 687 at the Garden Warehousing Stadium and took in a third qualifying round replay against Ware ends here. A couple of minutes before half-time, a punchdrunk Kidderminster supporter gave the chairman, Richard Lane, who stood behind the directors’ box taking everything in, a whopping kiss on the cheek. Seats were at a premium – tickets for this game sold out within hours of going on sale – and after Saïd Benrahma ballooned a wayward shot into the North Stand terrace, a capacity crowd sensed they were little more than 45 minutes from a historic victory, an iconic “I was there” moment. West Ham had done their homework – one of Stuart Pearce or Alan Irvine attended Kidderminster’s previous four games – but their first-half performance was laboured, disjointed and a pale imitation of the kind that has seen the visitors soar to fifth in the Premier League, 113 places above the hosts.
Continue reading...