Re: 8th April 1967

By LHToday 10:50Today at 10:50:15In response to 8th April 1967

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Boro welcomed Kidderminster Harriers to Manor Park for the second leg of the Birmingham Senior Cup final. After achieving their object by scoring two early goals to reduce the margin to 3-4, thus putting themselves right back in the reckoning, Borough failed to live up to their early promise and in the end went down 6-3 on aggregate. But Borough were the victims of ill-fortune in that after only three minutes, their ace goalscorer Tony Richards was injured and carried from the field. He returned after 15 minutes and hobbled about until 13 minutes from the end when he went off for good. Despite their handicap Borough fought with such spirit that during Richards’ absence from the field they scored twice and looked capable of wiping out completely the Harriers’ three goal lead. Up to half-time Harriers had done little to suggest a second-half comeback – that they would end the leg all square. But come back they did and slowly but most surely they began to squeeze Borough out of the game. Borough went into the lead in the ninth minute when Billy Hails put across a perfect centre for Tom Crawley to beat Tony Wilcox with a well-placed header. The same player repeated the dose in the 18th minute when he headed home a Paul Cutler centre. It was in the 58th minute that Holbutt got the first of his two goals, after Crump had got his foot to a shot from David Gilbert and the ball went to Barry Holbutt, who took advantage of an easy chance to reduce the lead. The equaliser came three minutes from the end when Holbutt swept the ball past Crump with the Borough defence wide open