Harriers lose epic shoot out

The replayed FA Trophy tie, which had already been rescheduled once, had ended 1-1 after 90 minutes.

Harriers' again came from behind to snatch a draw, this time Justin Richards netting five minutes after Daniel McBreen's 74th minute opener.

Because of the recent weather, it was the visitors first game since the original game on January 31.

Neither side would give it up, even when the game went the full 120 minutes and then to penalties. Both sides netted an incredible 12 each without failure, until Richards stepped up - for the second time.

He was thwarted by York goalkeeper Michael Ingham to put Harriers out.

Yates said: "I didn't watch them, but I could hear what was going on from the reaction of the crowd and my assistant Neil Howarth came in at the end to tell me about it. When you get to a penalty shoot-out it becomes a lottery and at York we lost that lottery.

"At the end of the day, we didn't do enough to win the game over the two matches. We looked like a team that hadn't played for two weeks. It's disapppointing, but whats done is done and now we concentrate on the league.

"Justin is disappointed but all of us have tried to lift him. It doesn't matter who missed the penalty, in the end it was him but there will be no recriminations. We move on."

The Harriers boss also refused to blame the playing surface at KitKat Crescent, which even opposite number Martin Foyle had described as "like concrete."

Nothing will change the fact that his side are out and now they turn back to a Blue Square Premier play-off challenge, with two home games starting against Northwich on Sunday and in front of the Setanta cameras in the rearranged clash with Cambridge next Tuesday night.

Yates said: "It was tricky conditions and it was difficult, but the bottom line is we didn't do enough. We wanted to progress in this competition but perhaps this result will not be the end of the season.

"Our priority has always been to reach the play offs."