March 2023 (Page 8)

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Well, we finally got the majority owner of Yeovil Town FC on the Gloverscast.

Matt Uggla joins Ian and Dave for a chat about his first week at the club and what the future could look like under SU Glovers.

He actually had to remind us about the meal deal…

Enjoy.

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.

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Yeovil Town midfielder Matt Worthington has been named in the provisional England C squad which will take on Wales later this month.

The 25-year-old is included in the 25-man squad managed by national team manager Paul Fairclough which is expected to be cut down to a final 16-man squad after next weekend’s National League fixtures.

The fourth International Challenge Match with Wales takes place at Altrincham’s J.Davidson Stadium on Tuesday, March 21 (7.45pm kick-off).

Tickets are priced at £7 for adults and £2 for under-18s and available to buy on the Altrincham website – here.

Squad in full:

Goalkeepers: Sam Howes (Wealdstone), Magnus Norman (Oldham Athletic), Harrison Male (Worthing).

Defenders: Tyler Cordner (Aldershot Town), Vince Harper (Eastleigh), Harry Phipps (Dagenham & Redbridge), Kenton Richardson (Gateshead), Dan Gallagher (Dorking Wanderers), Jesse Debrah (FC Halifax Town).

Midfielders: John Lundstram (Altrincham), Darren Oldaker (Chesterfield), James Daly (Woking), Ryan de Havilland (Barnet), Regan Booty (Maidstone United), Matt Worthington (Yeovil Town), Gus Scott-Moriss (Southend United), Olly Dyson (York City).

Strikers: Dennon Lewis (Boreham Wood), Cameron Wilson (Scunthorpe United), Sam Dalby (Wrexham), Emile Acquah (Maidenhead United), Joe Sbarra (Solihull Moors), Macauley Langstaff (Notts County), Aaron Jarvis (Torquay United).

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Who says Yeovil have problems in front of goal?

Not one, not two but THREE Yeovil players were on the score sheet on Saturday as we wrap up the the loan watch action.

We start at the highest level though with Ben Richards-Everton playing the full 90 minutes as Scunthorpe went down 1-0 to Eastleigh, former Glovers Michael Kelly, Alfie Lloyd, Aaron Martin, Christian Maghoma and Jake Scrimshaw lined up for the Spitfires.

Will Dawes made his debut for Oxford City as a second half substitute as the fell to a defeat at the hands of Farnborough.

Truro left it late to grab all three points in their game against Hayes and Heading.

Our very own Ollie Haste with the late goal! You can watch it… here

To Leamington we go, where there was another Glovers goal getter, Ollie Hulbert got his first for the Brakes in a convincing 4-1 win.

Let’s have another one shall we?

Sherborne Town picked up a valuable point, who scored their goal in a 1-1 draw? That’s right, our man Benjani Jr.

Jake Graziano also played the full 90.

To Gillingham Town where they picked up a huge 3-2 win of their own with a couple of Young Glovers on show, Rob Hollard pulled off some decent saves in goal whilst Sam Hodges was introduced from the bench.

There was no sign of either Toby Stephens (Plymouth Parkway) or Charlie Bateson (Tiverton Town) in their match day squads.

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On the day when Matt Uggla and Paul Sackey were officially presented to supporters, our former manager returned to burst the bubble at Huish Park. Here’s Ian’s conclusions from our 1-0 defeat by Woking.

It was a familiar story up front. Woking’s centre back pairing of Cuthbert and McNerney dominated Alex Fisher and Jordan Young in the first half. While Young is still adapting to this level, I felt Fisher should have been more prepared for a physical battle and he really struggled against Woking’s duo. While both strikers improved in the second half and Young should have equalised when he was one-on-one with Jaaskelainen. We’ve been saying it since the start of 2021/22, but we need to find a solution in the final third. Jordan Stevens showed glimpses, our wingbacks struggled to get any joy in attacking areas and Matt Worthington struggled to get on the ball to make things happen.

Jordan Young heads at goal. Image courtesy of Mike Kunz

Woking’s goal was a sloppy one. The other trend in recent weeks is the conceding of soft goals and Woking’s ticked that box. A good cross into the box from Edwin Agbaje was met by the head of Jordan Young, who could only head it at Jaaskelainen. Thirty seconds later, the ball was in the back of Grant Smith’s net. Woking pushed forward and when the ball reached Owen Bevan at an awkward height, he couldn’t head it, knee it or kick it and the ball was bundled to Lofthouse who smashed it in. While goals are obviously the big concern in the attacking third, the issue isn’t going away in the defensive third.

Darren Sarll.
Picture courtesy of Mike Kunz.

We got Darren Sarlled. Woking’s goal came after a golden opportunity for Jordan Young and once the Cards were ahead we saw a familiar pattern emerge. Yeovil returned from the break with momentum and put the pressure on Woking for the first 10 minutes, until our opponents got to grips with the situation and became masters of disruption. Players went down needing treatment innocuously, took forever to collect the ball for set pieces and goal kicks and showed their penchant for the dark arts – all facilitated by a referee who took no control of the time-wasting tactics. Yeovil just couldn’t get any rhythm in the second half and Woking saw the game out.

We need to start playing for the full game. Yesterday really was a rinse and repeat of our season. We struggled in the first half and then started playing after the break, until we got Sarlled. Mark Cooper referenced it post-match, our inability to play towards the away end. It’s a growing pattern that we only play towards the Thatchers. It has to be a mentality thing, as we’ve had plenty of teams over the years who’ve been able to score at either end. Of our 13 remaining fixtures, we’ve only got five more at home to make Huish Park a fortress and keep this team above the line.

Matt Uggla, left, and Paul Sackey, right, meet with some guy who we assume is part of their group! Picture courtesy of Mike Kunz.

A cloud has lifted at Huish Park. Despite the result, there was a feeling of relief at Huish Park with the presentation of Paul Sackey and Matt Uggla of SU Glovers before kick-off. There’s a lot of work to do, on the pitch and off of it, but it feels like we’ve got something we can get behind. Our new custodians introduced themselves to supporters, signed autographs, took photos, and mingled after the match too. Plenty returned to Huish Park yesterday for the first time in a long time and I’m sure more will come. While the result wasn’t what we might have scripted, it finally feels like we’ve got an ownership group who are genuinely invested in the future of our club.

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Yeovil Town Under-18s dropped to third place in the South West Counties Youth League after a 4-0 defeat at Torquay United on Saturday.

Double strikes from strikers Ben Aldous, the league’s top scorer, and Jayden Gilbert were enough to hand the Gulls victory and see them leap frog the young Glovers in the table.

Their next fixture sees them take on bottom-of-the-table Bath City at Alvington next weekend (10.30am kick-off).

Yeovil Town Under-18s: Witcombe, Dyer, Lock (for Koerner, 50), Skiverton, Foster, O’Sullivan Hunter, Bareham (for Beale, 50), Stevens (for Westlake, 70), Alden, Haskett.

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Yeovil Town captain Josh Staunton has told his team-mates it is their responsibility to get the club out of trouble at the wrong end of the National League table.

The Glovers sit one place and one point above the division’s relegation zone after a 1-0 home defeat to Woking on Saturday in another match where they were undone by a defensive lapse and an inability to score goals.

They take on play-off sides Eastleigh and Chesterfield in their next two games on Tuesday night and next weekend respectively.

Speaking to BBC Somerset’s Sheridan Robins after the Woking defeat, Staunton said: “It’s my job as captain, I am responsible for those boys and therefore their head space and body language is a reflection of me. I will give my last kick to stay up, so there will be no feeling like we are going down.

“It is a game of fine margins and at the moment we seem to be constantly on the wrong side of those, but that is down to us to swing things in our direction.

“This is Yeovil Town, it is a big football club and ultimately the players are guilty for putting us in that position, so it is us who has to get us out of it.”

The failure to score was the 13th time this season that Yeovil have drawn a blank in National League action and they remain comfortably the lowest scorers in the division with just 28 goals in 33 matches, ten fewer than bottom club Maidstone United.

Staunton said: “In the last few games we have really struggled (to score) and we have said in the dressing room that it is not tactical, that has to come from within from an individual in that split second.

“I think the boys were getting in positions where we can score but at the moment everything seems to be going the wrong side of the post for us, but the boys are a confident group and it is just a matter of time before they start going the right side of the post.

“It is a team responsibility, we should all be chipping in with more goals, we have had plenty of box entries today and we are just not falling on it.”

The goal scored by Woking defender Kyran Lofthouse after 14 minutes followed a mistake by Owen Bevan, but the on loan AFC Bournemouth defender had the backing of his captain.

Staunton said: “People make mistakes and Bevs is a young lad and he’ll make a lot more mistakes, but it’s about us as a group galvanising it and turning it in to a 2-1 win.

“We can’t keep putting ourselves in a position where we have to be faultless at the back because it is extremely hard especially against a team like today where it is a lot of percentage football.

“They are just waiting for a mistake, and when they make a mistake we have to punish them and we are not doing that.”

Ahead of the game, new owners Matt Uggla and former England rugby union player Paul Sackey, who were unveiled as owners in midweek, took to the Huish Park pitch and Staunton said the atmosphere inside the ground had boosted the players.

He said: “That today was the Yeovil Town I signed for, that was the atmosphere I played against when I came here, that was the town and the community spirit which we had not had the last year or so.

“The fans deserve it because they have stuck with the club through darker times and everything seems like it could be moving in the right direction, but we have to back it up on the pitch.”

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Yeovil Town manager Mark Cooper has said his players have to believe they can score a goal after watching them draw another blank at home to Woking this afternoon.

Striker Jordan Young had two glorious chances to get on the scoresheet; one moments before the visitors took the lead through Kyran Lofthouse’s goal in the 14th minute and one with the final chance of the match where his effort dribble wide.

Speaking to BBC Somerset’s Sheridan Robins after the match, Cooper said: “When the ball is going in the box, the difference between the top teams and the rest is that they believe and expect to score, I think we hope.

“We hope it is going to fall perfectly for someone and fly in the back of the net, we have got to get across people and risk a broken nose to get on the end of those balls.

“We can only put the balls in the right areas and it is the job of the boys who are there to attack it, to attack it and we are not very good of that.”

Aside from having just four attempts on goal (two of which were on target), the goal which won the game came from a mistake from defender Owen Bevan in front of a Thatcher’s Stand which had been in full voice, buoyed by the appearance of owners Matt Uggla and Paul Sackey before the match.

Asked about the winner, Cooper added: “It was too easy, it just bounced in the box, I think Bevs got caught trying to clear it, not head it and it just ended up in the back of the net.

“When you are struggling, you are a bit fragile and the more I keep saying ‘stop conceding soft goals’, the more it plays on their minds.

“You are damned if you do and damned if you don’t, we just have to make sure if we concede a goal, we go and score one.” Or even more than one, Mark!

He added: “They turned it in to a scrap which is what they are good at and when you concede such a soft goal as we did it makes it very difficult, they are very good at defending what they have got. I was pleased with the players’ effort, but we just need to show a bit more quality.”

The manager said he saw glimpses of the quality he believes new signing Jordan Stevens, signed following his release by League Two Barrow in the week, on his debut, but he said it would be difficult for him to add a goalscorer to boost their fight against relegation.

Eastleigh, who sit in sixth place after a 1-0 win over Scunthorpe United today, visit Huish Park on Tuesday night before Cooper takes his side to Chesterfield next weekend. They picked up a late 2-1 win at Gateshead, a result which kept Yeovil one place and one position outside the relegation zone.

On new signings, Cooper said: “Unless you are going to pay ridiculous amounts of money and people know you are desperate and will pull your pants down (to sell you a goalscorer), so it is going to be nigh on impossible to get a striker.”

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Venue: Huish Park
Saturday 4th March, 3pm kick-off

Pitch: Good – and now with a new groundsman.
Conditions: Overcast
Attendance: 3,237 (323 away supporters)

Scorers: Kyran Lofthouse (0-1)

Bookings: 

Yeovil Town: Jamie Reckord 17, Charlie Cooper 26, Josh Staunton 68, Morgan Williams 79.
Woking: Rohan Ince 49.

Referee: Elliot Swallow

Yeovil Town (5-3-2)

Substitutes: Andrew Oluwabori (for Edwinn Agbaje, 65), Seb Palmer-Houlden (for Alex Fisher, 83), Chiori Johnson, Jordan Maguire-Drew, Josh Owers.

Woking: Jaaskelainen, Lofthouse (for Simper, 80), Casey, Cuthbert, McNerney, Amond (for Sass-Davies, 90+1), Moss, Nwabuokei, Kellermann, Dackers, Ince  Substitutes (not used): Ross, Korboa, Simper, Nelson, Sass-Davies.

Match Report

A masterclass in the true spirit of Darren Sarll’s sh*thousery was enough to see his Woking side complete the double over Yeovil Town in front of a big crowd at Huish Park.

More than 3,000 turned out buoyed by the start of a new era of ownership of the club following the takeover by SU Glovers in the weekend and they witnessed a typically lacklustre first half from their side which saw Kyran Lofthouse open the scoring on 14 minutes.

To add insult to insult, Jordan Young had a glorious opportunity with a header moments before the opening goal and it was the striker who had the game’s final chance in injury time at the end of a disjointed second half, but his dinked effort over the keeper trickled wide.

A late Chesterfield goal condemned Gateshead to defeat and meant they remain a point inside the National League relegation zone with the Glovers hovering just above the dotted line.

 

First half

New owners Matt Uggla and Paul Sackey were introduced to the crowd before the match and Huish Park was in the kind of voice not seen for at least two seasons – maybe more!

 

Matt Uggla, left, and Paul Sackey, right, meet with some guy who we assume is part of their group! Picture courtesy of Mike Kunz.

But it was a familiar theme early on as a good header from Marcus Dackers was superbly saved by Grant Smith, but the keeper could only push it as far as the striker who scuffed his effort in to the grateful hands of the best keeper in the National League – don’t @ me!

On 15 minutes, great play by Edwin Agbaje on the counter attack, who looked to have a great opportunity to have a shot as he went in to the penalty area, but he held it up and crossed it for Jordan Young whose header was straight at Will Jaaskelinan.

But, at the risk of saying ‘the more things change, the more they stay the same’, the visitors broke straight down the other end and took the lead.
Owen Bevan was at fault (not often we have said that) for not clearing a ball convincingly and it broke to Kyran LOFTHOUSE who thundered home on the half-volley.

It was a sloppy goal and so disappointing after a decent opening 15 minutes from Yeovil. Well, we’ve seen them play a lot worse this season.

But the visitors took confidence from that opener and on 22 minutes a great attacking move found Dackers almost on the penalty spot, but he shanked his effort wide with Smith beaten. Big let off.

On 27 minutes, Cooper went down under a challenge, jumped up and squared up to his aggressor, Jim Kellermann, and ‘got in his face’ – literally. It was a yellow card from referee Elliot Swallow, but let’s call that a dark orange card! Darren Sarll, now obviously in the away dug-out, made his feelings known to the official and ended up with a yellow card of his own.

Three minutes later, Smith was in action again after a nicely worked move by Woking saw Dackers nod the ball down to Ince whose thunderous effort was superbly turned aside by the keeper at full stretch.

With ten minutes of the half remaining, a chance (half chance?) fell Yeovil’s way when a good cross by Matt Worthington almost found Alex Fisher. The striker went down claiming a push in the back……yeah, probably not, Alex.

There was little else to write home about in the rest of the first half and it is probably fair to say Mark Cooper was glad to get his side back in the dressing room. Changes afoot in the second half, perhaps.

 

Half time: Yeovil Town 0 Woking 1

 

Second half

Well, no changes in personnel, but a change in intent. From the kick-off, a good ball over the top from Bevan and Fisher got away from his marker Scott Cuthbert and hit a shot which didn’t really test Jaaskelinan. Bit better though.

On 51 minutes, a powerful free-kick from Young clipped the crossbar with the keeper expecting the cross. It could have gone anywhere but unfortunately it did not quite dip under the bar.

Jordan Stevens had an effort blocked four minutes later but there was not much more in terms of attacking threat and on 65 minutes Andrew Oluwabori came on in place of Edwin Agbaje.

Jordan Stevens. Picture courtesy of Mike Kunz.

Now remember how when Darren Sarll was our manager we used to laugh about other fans raging as our players sh*thoused to disrupt and frustrate our opposition? Well, now we are the “other fans”. Referee Elliot Swallow did not offer any kind of response.

Oluwabori could not really make an impact with his team-mates unable to find him in exactly the type of disjointed second half the away dug-out would have loved to have seen.

With seven minutes remaining Seb Palmer-Houlden, the young striker on loan from Bristol City, replaced Fisher and within two minutes of his arrival he released Oluwabori, but the Peterborough United loanee could not get a shot off. Two minutes later he was unable to get a header on target after a ball in from Cooper.

As the game crept in to two-and-a-half minutes as Jordan Young beat Cuthbert for pace and dinked it over the keeper……but it just crept agonisingly past the post. That would have taken the roof off the Thatcher’s End.

Another second half where we were in the ascendency in the second half late rally was too little, too late.

Full time:  Yeovil Town 0 Woking 1

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Mark Cooper has handed a debut to new signing Jordan Stevens as his Yeovil Town side taking on Woking at Huish Park (3pm kick-off).

The midfielder, who has arrived following his release by League Two Barrow, is joined in the starting XI by captain Josh Staunton and midfielder Matt Worthington, who both missed the midweek draw with Altrincham through injury.  Striker Jordan Young comes in up front alongside Alex Fisher having been on the bench in the last match.

Ryan Law and Lawson D’Ath are not named in the squad whilst on-loan Bristol City players Josh Owers and Seb Palmer-Houlden are both named on the bench. There is no place for striker Malachi Linton, who was an unused substitute against Altrincham.

There are plenty of familiar faces in the Woking squad, managed by ex-Glovers’ boss Darren Sarll, with former Yeovil men Dan Moss and Rohan Ince in the starting line-up and centre half Billy Sass-Davies, signed on loan from Crewe this morning, and midfielder Lewis Simper on the bench.

The visitors do not include defender Luke Wilkinson, who captained Yeovil during his time at Huish Park.

Yeovil Town (5-3-2)