Cobblers pull out of race to sign striker Jamille Matt

And manager Aidy Boothroyd believes Town have done Harriers ‘a right favour’ by bringing attention to a player who has scored seven times in his last six outings, earning him the award of Blue Square Bet Premier player of the month for December in the process.

Matt signed an 18-month extension to his contract with Kidderminster last week and the club are confident they will receive a big fee for his services should they decide to cash in, with teams from league one and the championship understood to be interested.

But the Cobblers, who made three written offers for the player 12 months ago, are out.

“That’s just the nature of the game, it will probably work out better for them because the longer something goes on it becomes like an auction,” he said.

“And in any auction you’re always going to get the best price if you’ve got three or four people bidding against each other.

“But you have to know when the time is right to get out of an auction and we’ve definitely left the building. We won’t be bidding.”

The fee for Matt will depend entirely on the size of the buying clubs but Boothroyd feels the fact a lot of teams are interested in the striker could drive the price up.

Such a situation would clearly be beneficial to Kidderminster, who were in talks to sell the player during the 2012 transfer window.

“I think we’ve done Kidderminster a right favour because we saw Jamille Matt before anyone else saw him,” he said.

“The chairman, David (Cardoza), tried to get a negotiation going and that fell flat. Since he’s come back we’ve been watching him and I’ve been to see him a couple of times but he’s doing that well and scoring that many goals he might just be beyond us.

“We’ve alerted the world to him and that’s what happens sometimes. He is one player that I have liked for a long time but I don’t think we’ll be in a position to compete with the types of clubs that will be going for him.”