January 2023 (Page 3)

By:
On:
In: Latest Yeovil Town News

Yeovil Town have been linked with a move for Rangers’ attacker Josh McPake.

The former Scotland Under-19s international has been told his future lies away from Ibrox and FootballScotland.co.uk say that the Glovers and Gateshead lead the way for his signature.

They say: “Gateshead and Yeovil are preparing offers for McPake that could see him head for the English National League and try and kickstart his career in England.”

McPake has been with the Glasgow side his entire career with loan spells at Harrogate Town, Tranmere Rovers and most recently on loan at Scottish Championship side Queen’s Park where he scored three goals in 18 appearances during the first part of the season.

New Rangers’ manager Michael Beale is said to be freshening his squad up during the January window, and a permanent move is preferred for McPake as opposed to a loan deal.

Watch this space, I guess.

By:
On:
In: Latest Yeovil Town News, Podcasts

Well, in an episode befitting a shambolic weekend, Ian, Ben and Dave are hear to talk about yesterday’s postponement, until Ian’s internet gives up, and then Dave’s power does.

Thank you for your continued support of the Gloverscast. Remember to add Gloverscast.co.uk to your favourites and check the website daily for the latest news and views from Huish Park.

Follow us on Twitter and Facebook. Leave us a review and share the pod with a pal.

We’d love to welcome some local businesses into the Gloverscast family through advertising. If you’re a business that would like to speak to a dedicated audience of more than 1000 monthly listeners, please get in touch. Find out more about advertising with us here.

If you have an idea for the website, want to contribute or just want to send us a message, feel free to email ian@gloverscast.co.uk.

By:
On:
In: Latest Yeovil Town News

***UPDATE (24.01.23) – Mike from the Yeovil Town FC Heritage Society has confirmed the £150 appeal total has been reached. A contractor will clean the grave on March 6 and a bouquet of flowers has been left in memory of “Johnny” and Mable in the Garden of Remembrance at Huish Park.
A big thanks to everyone who supported the appeal.***


Mike West over at the Yeovil Town FC Heritage society is raising money to restore the grave of one of the club’s greatest ever players, Fred ‘Johnny’ Hayward.

Hayward scored 548 goals in twenty years at Yeovil and his scoring record is recognised as the second best for one club in word football behind Gerd Muller and Bayern Munich. Johnny passed away aged 71 in 1958.

Mike posted on his Facebook page: “Recently, John Penny, Fred’s grandson kindly discovered Johnny’s grave for us. Located at Yeovil Cemetery, Johnny is buried with his beloved wife Mabel. As you can see from the photos, time has not been good to the grave and it definitely needs a good clean up.”

The Yeovil Town FC Heritage have contacted a headstone restorer and cleaner locally and have had a quote of approximately £150 to have Fred and Mabel’s last resting place cleaned up.

If you’d like to contribute to the appeal please send money to:

GMM Brandtex
Sort Code: 04-03-70
Account Number: 95993172

To learn more about Johnny, read Mike’s post here.

By:
On:
In: Latest Yeovil Town News

An injury time winner from substitute Nathan Hart took ten-man Yeovil Town Under-18s top of the South West Counties League table.

Hart, who came on as a 60th minute substitute, struck four minutes in to stoppage time at the end of the second half to seal a 4-3 win over third placed Cirencester Town.

The win moved the young Glovers top of the table with former leaders Bridgwater United’s match against Bath City falling foul to the weather.

Yeovil took the lead earlier through a third-minute strike from young striker Charlie Bateson, his eighth of the season.

Having been pegged back, Max Dyer restored the visitor’s lead with a thunderous 32nd minute strike from the edge of the box.

Cirencester drew level on the hour and then suffered a double setback on 65 minutes when Ethan O’Sullivan was sent off for giving away a free-kick which the home side scored from.

Mason Hunter’s 90th-minute thunderbolt from 25 yards looked to have earnt the visitors a late point, before Hart struck at the death.

Manager Matt Percival was only able to name three substitutes having seen goalkeeper Rob Hollard, midfielder Sam Hodges, captain Jake Graziano and striker Benjani Junior, who have joined Western League sides Gillingham Town and Sherborne Town since the side’s last match.

Yeovil Town Under-18s: Jordan Witcombe, Mikey Archibald (for Corey Koerner, 60), Max Dyer (captain), Jacob Shore, Harrison Foster, Mason Hunter, Aidan Skiverton, Charlie Bateson, Alex Stevens (for Jack Bareham, 65), Josh Haskett (for Nathan Hart, 60), Ethan O’Sullivan.

By:
On:
In: Latest Yeovil Town News

It’s not just the Yeovil first team getting frustrated at the weather, so are the legion of loanee Glovers. It’s time for another chilly edition of Loan Watch.

So…Plymouth Parkway (Toby Stephens), Gillingham Town (Sam Hodges and Rob Hollard), Sherborne Town (Benjani Jnr and Jake Graziano) and Leamington (Ollie Hulbert) all saw their games called off.

However, Truro’s home game against Merthyr Town did go ahead at Bolitho Park, Plymouth. Paul Wotton’s side drew 0-0 against their Welsh opposition, but Ollie Haste was an unused substitute.

Which means the only Glover to actually see a competitive game was Will Dawes, who joined W*ymouth, the team second from bottom of the National League South.

He started on the bench for (have we really got to mention them every time for a month!?), but was introduced as a 76th minute substitute.

Unfortunately, he couldn’t prevent the Seagull botherers from going down 2-1 to Chelmsford City. Yes, truly unfortunate that.

Wait… so, do we want a Dawes hat-trick in a 4-3 loss every week? I feel conflicted.

For the record, goalkeeper Max Evans‘ one-month loan at Bedford Town officially came to an end in midweek, but he hadn’t played for a few games, we assume he’s back at Huish Park and probably has been for a while.

Plenty of sides are going to try and get games in midweek so there will be (weather permitting) a midweek Loan Watch to look forward to.

By:
On:
In: Latest Yeovil Town News

Yeovil Town chief executive Martyn Starnes has said the club will formally complain about referee Sam Mulhall describing his decision to call off today’s match with Altrincham at Huish Park as “nonsense.”

Starnes said a complaint would go in to the Professional Game Match Officials Board (PGMOL) claiming he ignored the advice from Glovers’ boss Mark Cooper and his players to allow the game to go ahead.

After the postponement, the team trained on the pitch closest to the away end which had not been a concern to the official, who Starnes and Cooper said was concerned about parts of the penalty area in front of the Thatcher’s End which had been covered all week.

Speaking to BBC Somerset’s Sheridan Robins on Saturday afternoon, Starnes said: “The manager and all the players were more than happy for the game to go ahead, Altrincham have traveled for five hours and as far as I am aware they want to play the game and it is just an outrageous decision by the referee.

“He has not taken in to account the representation from the players or the manager and this needs to be challenged. I will be going to the PGMOL and making a formal complaint.

“It is very frustrating when a game gets called off late and I do understand that sometimes the weather conditions do conspire against you and, according to the referee, they conspired against us again – but it is just simply the wrong decision.

“If the squad can play a training session on this pitch, why can’t we play a National League game? It’s just nonsense.

“They think the area in the goal mouth is too hard, it is firm in certain places but the pitch against Dorking (in the FA Trophy earlier this month) was a lot worse than this and we played that game without incident. We told him that and he still would not take on any of these representations, it is a really, really poor decision from the referee.”

Martyn Starnes, left, with director Stuart Robins, centre, and chairman Scott Priestnall at the match at Altrincham in August.

Cooper said there was “one small area” of the pitch which the club had “a heater” on to speed up the thawing out process which had caused concern to the match official.

“When he spoke to the BBC after the match, he referred to the weather in Somerset as “like Saint Tropez“, adding: “We have trained the last two days on perfectly soft pitches at Alvington half-a-mile down the road, there’s one small area on the bottom goal that I think would have thawed out. Have we done as much as we could to get it on? I’m not sure.

“It’s solely the officials decision. It’s been taken out of my hands and by 3pm the pitch is playable and now most of the pitch is perfect and it is only one little area which we have a heater on that would have thawed out. We can’t affect the referee, that is his decision.”

Starnes was introduced by BBC Somerset’s Geoff Twentyman as the club’s CEO, a position that he appears as on the club’s website and in October Glovers’ chairman Scott Priestnall said he would be appointed in the role “shortly” – but he has never been formally announced in the role.

The surface had been covered overnight with temperatures dropping below zero and a “group of staff and volunteers” were on the pitch to attempt to make it playable. The pitch in front of the Thatcher’s Stand had been covered since the start of the week as it gets less sun on it, but the rest of the surface was only covered on Friday.

Just before 11am on Saturday, the club confirmed there would be a 1pm pitch inspection describing it as “firm in some small patches” and comments from the club’s official Facebook account said “there were no qualified referees in the area able to come in this morning” and conduct an earlier inspection.

In a statement confirming the postponement, the club said: “In our view the referee has made an outrageous decision to call the game off despite representations from the club that the game should go ahead.”

Maybe they are saving it for the forthcoming Fans’ Forum…….

By:
On:
In: Latest Yeovil Town News

Yeovil Town have described the decision to call off today’s home match with Altrincham as “outrageous” after the referee deemed Huish Park unplayable an hour-and-a-half before kick-off.

The surface had been covered overnight with temperatures dropping below zero and a “group of staff and volunteers” were on the pitch to attempt to make it playable. The pitch in front of the Thatcher’s Stand had been covered since the start of the week as it gets less sun on it, but the rest of the surface was only covered on Friday.

Just before 11am, the club confirmed there would be a 1pm pitch inspection describing it as “firm in some small patches” and comments from the club’s official Facebook account said “there were no qualified referees in the area able to come in this morning” and conduct an earlier inspection.

In a statement confirming the postponement, the club said: “We are extremely disappointed to announce this afternoon’s game has been postponed.

“The covers were removed from the pitch this morning, a group of staff and volunteers put their efforts in to make the pitch playable.

“The manager (and) players were happy to play the game and will now be training on this pitch.

“In our view the referee has made an outrageous decision to call the game off despite representations from the club that the game should go ahead.”

In a post on Twitter, BBC Somerset reporter Sheridan Robins said that (as yet to be formally announced, but presumed) chief executive Martyn Starnes would be making a complaint to the Professional Game Match Officials Board (PGMOL) about the decision.

With more than 200 miles and almost four hours of travelling time between South Manchester and South Somerset, unsurprisingly both the Altrincham players and staff and supporters were already at Huish Park when the decision came in.

The decision comes just four days after Yeovil were the victims of a late postponement at Barnet which was called off less than two hours before kick-off on Tuesday night.

Manager Mark Cooper described that decision as “embarrassing” saying: “I don’t think there’s any need to drag a team and supporters all that way when you know what is going to happen. The pitch is not going to get any softer between 4pm and 6pm, is it?

“It would have been easier to call it off as other teams did on Tuesday night. It is just a bit embarrassing for Barnet rather than for us and I just feel sorry for the supporters who had to travel all that way.”

Here’s how the pitch looked in pictures….

That tricky area in front of the Thatcher’s Stand at 11am after the covers were removed….

…..a few hours later as staff and volunteers worked on the pitch….

….and then at 1.30pm as @altrinchamfc Twitter confirmed the postponement m.

Check out Ian’s Gloversblog on the subject of late postponements written after the abandonment at Barnet – read here.

By:
On:
In: Latest Yeovil Town News

There will be a 1pm pitch inspection ahead of today’s National League match with Altrincham at Huish Park today (3pm kick-off).

The club’s statement described the pitch as “firm in some small patches” after the frost covers which had been on overnight were removed the morning.

They added: “However we are confident the surface will be safe to play this afternoon.

“The match officials for this fixture will arrive at around 1pm, then there will be a pitch inspection at Huish Park.

“Further updates will be issued on our channels following the completion of the pitch inspection.”

The Met Office has the temperature at 0 degrees at 11am but it is expected to warm up to a toasty four degrees by 1pm and a further degree by kick-off.

Maybe put your thermals on if you are planning to be there this afternoon.

By:
On:
In: Latest Yeovil Town News

Yeovil Town Under-18s are back in South West Counties Youth League action for the first time this year as they travel to Cirencester Town (10.30am kick-off) today.

The match is their first action since they went down 2-1 to leaders Bridgwater United in the league’s Gary Else Memorial Cup at the start of December.

Since that fixture, they have lost goalkeeper Rob Hollard and midfielder Sam Hodges who have joined Western League Division One side Gillingham Town on loan, and captain Jake Graziano and striker Benjani Junior who have both seen action for Sherborne Town, who play in the Western League Premier Division.

Cirencester sit in third place in the division, one place and one point behind the Glovers, with both sides having played eight matches.

A win for either would take them top of the table with Bridgwater’s home match with Bath City having fallen foul to the cold weather.

The Under-18s’ line-up for the match at Cirencester posted on the @ytfcyouth Instagram.

By:
On:
In: Latest Yeovil Town News

Winger Will Dawes has been joined relegation battling W*ymouth on a one-month loan having been recalled from a previous spell at Stratford Town.

The 22-year-old, who was signed for an undisclosed five-figure fee from Stratford in the summer, had been a regular for the Bards although did not feature in their last fixture and has presumably been sent to the Dorset coast as some form of punishment.

Terras’ boss Bobby Wilkinson, who presumably has changed his mind on hating Yeovil which he declared when he was appointed at the Bob Lucas Stadium in September, is hoping the arrival will bolster the form which sees them sat second-from-bottom of the National League Table.

He said: “We have signed a tricky little winger to give competition to Keelan O’Connell and Tom Blair. He was a young talent bought by Yeovil for a good fee, so we’re pleased to announce that he’s come to us for a month.”

Before being loaned back to Stratford at the start of December, Dawes appeared just three times since arriving at Huish Park.

His last outing – and only one under manager Mark Cooper – saw him come on as 62nd minute substitute in the 1-0 defeat at Woking on November 1.

He made two appearances under former boss Chris Hargreaves, starting the 1-1 draw at Dorking Wanderers on October 4.

We’d wish him good luck with the Terras, but we wouldn’t mean it.