THE first game I can remember watching the Harriers was in 1946 against Walsall at Aggborough.

It was a Birmingham League match. I was 10, and I was puzzled how a Polish team came to be playing the Harriers!

I stood on an unterraced mound of earth, just to the side of the old main stand, although later I favoured the cowshed.

Since then I have been a regular supporter, home and away.

During that time I have followed the Harriers in the Birmingham League, the Southern League, the Alliance, the Conference and the Football League. My memory goes back to players such as Salters, Joe Hackett, Aubrey Haycox etc.

Most vividly, I recall the Harriers setting up the Southern League defensive record under the captaincy of Dennis Jennings, with former Brentford and Scotland's Joe Crozier in goal.

The Harriers have been a cherished part of my life for 60 years.

Even though I no longer live in Kidderminster, I travel to every home and away game and feel entitled to express my feelings about the current plight of the club.

At Harriers' forums, and in the press reports, I became positively weary of Colin Youngjohns replying, to every question he was asked, that the Harriers were the envy of many clubs because they were healthily in the black and were not in the hands of some unscrupulous millionaire who would ruin the club's future.

He said this time and time again.

Suddenly, in the close season, following relegation, we learned that only the early subscription to season tickets saved the club from financial disaster.

I feel very concerned that no explanation has ever been provided for this extraordinary volte-face from financial health to a teetering on the brink of bankkrupcy.

Now, it appears that the club may have to sell some of its top players if it is to survive.

Such a solution would only occur to directors who are either ignorant or uncaring of the actual context of Kidderminster's football club. It is a fact of life that, with our club, the only way to halt the disastrous falling away of support is to achieve success on the field.

For Kidderminster, there is no other way.

To sell players is to be willing to fall further, out of the Conference, and even beyond, to return to that status the club held when I was watching them in 1946.

To do that would be to betray loyal supporters and former dedicated directors such as the late Lionel Green, among others.

Sadly, as I waited in the cold outside Aggborough, for the coach to take us to Stevenage and Colin Youngjohns drove up late, having kept the team coach waiting, the thought crossed my mind - how much do they really care?

Do the directors have the entrepreneurial ability, the willingness to take financial risk and sufficient love for the club to really take on the challenge of lifting the Harriers' fortunes without sacrificing the playing staff? I am reluctant to confront the answers.

After all, over recent years the performance of the board has made a significant contribution to the club's decline.

DR PHILIP CRUMPTON

Madeley

Staffordshire