Harriers in fight to financially compete

Kidderminster Harriers chairman Mark Serrell today warned the club "can't compete" with the bigger-spending clubs in the Blue Square Premier.

Fleetwood and York have jumped up from non-league's top flight but other clubs have upped their budgets in a bid to follow them next season.

Macclesfield and Hereford join from the Football League with parachute payments, while Forest Green and Mansfield are splashing the cash.

Mansfield took two of Harriers' out-of-contract players in Luke Jones and Nick Wright, on far bigger wages than what was on offer at Aggborough.

Harriers hope to sneak in the signing of Ebbsfleet winger Ricky Shakes under the radar while they are also close with an unnamed centre-half.

Steve Burr's men just missed the play-offs last season but Serrell admits it could be "hard" to challenge again, despite increasing their own budget.

The Harriers chairman said: "The fact is that the club can't compete as there's a lot of money floating around, even at this level.

"It's going to be hard and we are working with limited resources, we are relatively small in that respect.

"We have been able to increase the budget a little bit more, but it's only small and the costs have gone up.

"We all want to go further but, realistically, we have massively over-achieved over the past couple of years.

"The pressure on our management team is can they do it again because, really, we shouldn't be there.

"People don't want to hear that, but that's the truth."

In addition to Jones and Wright, David Hankin and Michael Briscoe have gone part-time with Chester and AFC Telford respectively.

Tom Marshall is also expected to move on and Serrell concedes they were simply not able to compete with some of the rival offers.

He said: "Some of the players were offered extremely good money to go elsewhere and we were not able to meet those demands.

"Whether some of those players wanted to stay at Kidderminster Harriers, I don't know, but we were not in the same ball park.

"I have no anomosity towards the players that have left because they have got to do the best for themselves.

"I have no problem with that, that's the market economy and that's football. When players do well, they will be made good offers by other clubs."