Harborough 1 Lye Town 0 - Report

Dan Brookes’s own goal on the stroke of half-time decided this highly-competitive clash with chances to level and a huge penalty shout coming and going for the visitors.

Harborough started brightly enough but Paul Malone’s pair of efforts failed to unduly trouble Josh Bishop.

The breakthrough came on the stroke of half-time when a Rhys Hoenes cross was deflected in by the unfortunate Brookes and while Jake Duffy shot narrowly wide when well placed early in the second half, Lye had the better of it from there.

Home keeper James Dadge saved from Nathan Kabeya and Sam Tye, while hotshot Joe Palmer appeared to be in the perfect position to level with 15 minutes to go only to go down under a sweeping challenge, much to Joshua’s frustration.

“It was probably the most stonewall penalty I have seen in my 25 years in the game,” he said.

“Joe ended up kicking into the lad’s calf instead of the ball because he put both of his legs in front of Joe’s legs,” he said.

“How it was not given, I will never know. Hopefully he (the referee) will look back at it and realise what an error it was, I found it hard to believe.”

There was a double chance to claim a share of the spoils at the death, too, with Palmer’s header saved by Dadge at point-blank range and Ben Billingham’s follow-up held by the Harborough custodian.

“To come here and dominate like we did, particularly in the second half, I could not be any more proud of the lads,” said Joshua.

“We limited them to one shot in the whole game, and that wasn’t really a shot, it was an own goal.

“We were a little bit off in the first half, maybe we gave them too much respect, but after that it was one of the best halves we have played all season.

“We worked the keeper and probably should have scored some of the chances we had, then the penalty incident as well, so we feel hard done by but the performance was very good.”