Harriers target 1,800 attendances

Kidderminster Harriers chairman Mark Serrell has targeted attracting 1,800 fans to Aggborough for each home game next season.

Harriers were boosted by four gates that broke through the 2,000 mark after staving off the threat of administration in February, but their season average was around 1,500.

Those bumper attendances played a part in the club being saved from financial ruin and, going into the new campaign, the club is again free of significant debt.

And Serrell is hoping to keep the fans that turned out when the club was in trouble coming through the turnstiles, vowing that their money will be used to back boss Steve Burr in the transfer market.

The chairman also revealed that the playing budget will be reviewed at monthly board meetings and adjusted accordingly, after a rise in season ticket sales of 30 per cent compared to last summer.

He said: "I would like to see a similar sort of increase on a match-day. If we can increase our gates by 30 per cent, we would be in a position to give the manager an even bigger budget than he has got now.

"For the first time in a long time, any extra revenue that we get is all money that can be put to one side to be used by the manager as he sees fit.

"We have to start somewhere and we have to assume somewhere what our gate is going to be, personally I would like to be averaging 1,800.

"But we have based the budget on last season's average and, in our forecasts, we have not budgeted on any progress in cup competitions.

"We feel we have done everything we can and we will not put the club in jeopardy like it was before."

The long-term goal is to make Harriers self-sufficent but positive moves to the squad with 22 players contracted, including 11 new arrivals, has kept the fans happy.

Serrell said: "We are trying to put the building blocks in place to make the club sustainable in the long run and we are just starting on that process.

"From a footballing point of view, we are all quite happy with the business that the manager has done.

"The focus has been on the new players he has signed and that's always very good."