Albion kept their promotion show on the road with only eight men.

At least that was the verdict of manager Micky Adams after one of those instances where the result was more memorable than the performance.

Adams was forthright in his criticism of the first-half contributions of virus victim Bobby Zamora, Gary Hart and Paul Brooker.

"I was very disappointed with my front three," he said. "Bobby got some sort of bug and that seemed to knock him sideways, but I decided to leave him on.

"Too much bounced off them, they weren't positive enough and I said to the boys we are playing with eight men.

"It would have been easy to take all three of them off at half time."

The trio were all eventually substituted, but not before Zamora had calmly clinched victory in his new role as penalty taker.

Adams nominated him following Paul Watson's midweek miss in the shoot-out at Brentford. Zamora's response was nerveless after Craig Hinton pulled him down.

He sent Stuart Brock the wrong way to increase his tally for the season to 18 and end an inexplicable away famine in the League stretching back to February.

Kidderminster boss Jan Molby and the home fans were furious. They felt Zamora had gone to ground rather too readily.

It looked a blatant enough penalty to me and their anger probably had more to do with a couple of claims of their own midway through each half, which were rejected by ref David Pugh.

Front pair Ian Foster and John Durnin went down under challenges by Danny Cullip. On another day either or both of them might have been given, but Kidderminster could have no complaints about the result.

Albion were worthy winners on the strength of a much-improved second half after a desperately disappointing opening 45 minutes.

A firm and well-grassed pitch, which put Withdean to shame, should have suited two sides favouring a passing game.

But they struggled to find any fluency and succeeded only in emulating the intriguing name of a local estate agent advertising on top of one of the stands: Dolittle and Dalley.

Albion took a lead into a dressing room dressing down from Adams, thanks to one of the craziest own goals of the season. Watson's free-kick from inside the centre circle in his own half was headed backwards over Brock by Adie Smith.

The long-serving midfielder had oxygen chamber treatment during the week to accelerate his recovery from a knee injury. All that gas obviously went to his head!

Watson thought he had doubled the advantage in the 62nd minute with a free-kick from wide on the right flank which went straight in. It was ruled out for an infringement on Brock, but it spurred Albion on to take control of the rest of the contest.

Zamora had a looping far post header from a Richard Carpenter cross helped onto the bar by an uncertain Brock.

Charlie Oatway, recalled instantly from a one-match ban at the expense of Nathan Jones, also went close from long range before Zamora put the outcome beyond doubt.

Adams quite rightly praised his back four and central midfielders for the way they protected Michel Kuipers as Albion avenged that timid defeat by the same score at Withdean at the end of August.

"It was payback time," he said. "I can't really remember our goalkeeper having a shot to save, although we didn't play well attacking wise.

"It was a scrappy own goal and we'll accept it. You don't look a gift horse in the mouth.

"Bobby was the obvious choice for penalties. I was pleased to see him step up and put his reputation on the line.

"He was disappointed with his performance, but he had a bit of an excuse because of the virus.

"It was a welcome three points after the disappointment of New Year's Day against Southend. We bounced back in style."

Not quite in style perhaps, although you could not quarrel with the efficiency of Albion's display.

Ironically, a late own goal enabled Chesterfield to maintain their five point lead at home to Scunthorpe. With three going up automatically the six point cushion separating the Seagulls from Alan Cork's Cardiff is more relevant at the moment.