Ben Barrett (Page 18)

Yeovil Town Women have been handed a home draw in the FA Cup 2nd Qualifying Round.

They will face Pucklechurch Sports on Sunday 1st of October.

The Glovers cruised through the first round of qualifying with a 5-0 away win over Mangotsfield Town

Tickets for the Glovers’ away fixture at Bath City are now on sale, but come with an almighty asterisk attached to them.

Yeovil Town are scheduled to head to face the Romans on Saturday 14th October, however, should EITHER SIDE progress to the fourth qualifying round of the FA Cup, that game will have to be rescheduled – likely to a midweek slot.

Nevertheless, tickets are now available and the home side do point out that in the event of a postponement, tickets would be valid for the rearranged date… or you can opt for a refund.

Tickets are available to buy HERE

The Glovers have been given an allocation of 1100 tickets for the game, at the “Bristol End” of the stadium.

Tickets are £1 cheaper than if purchased on the night, and to be honest, there’s a fair chance this game will get close to selling out regardless of when it’s played, so leaving it late is probably not advisable.

The match IS segregated and thus travelling fans will have their own separate end and facilities.

 

Huish Park will host more FA Cup action on Tuesday night as the Under 18s host Helston Athletic in the FA Youth Cup.

It’s been confirmed that this match will take place on the first team pitch and tickets are available on the day and in advance, by clicking HERE

The tickets are only available for the main stand, and are broken up into two categories; 

ADULTS – £5

UNDER  16S – £1.

The match kicks off at 7pm.

The young Glovers are coming off the back of a battling point at the weekend, recovering from 2-0 down to secure their first point of the new season.

If you’re at a loss for what to do on your Tuesday evening, Huish Park will open to the masses with all supporters welcome to cheer on the Under 18s as they hope to emulate their senior counterparts and progress to the next round.

Yeovil Town will welcome Didcot Town to Huish Park in the FA Cup 3rd Qualifying round.

Didcot progressed to this round with a 2-0 win over Bristol Manor Farm at the weekend, the Southern League Premier side have reached this stage for the first time in eight years with the win.

The Glovers, of course scored seven against AFC Stoneham to book their place at this stage.

Other eye catching ties include, W*ymouth hosting Bath, Torquay taking on Hungerford whilst the winner of Taunton and Merthyr’s replay will host Sheppy United.

Matches will take place the weekend of Saturday 30th of September – some games may be moved to Friday or Sunday as has happened this last round too, and the BBC will pick one of the ties for broadcast on Saturday lunchtime.

Winning clubs will get £5,625 whilst those exiting the competition at this stage pick up a consolation £1,875.

Should it be needed, a draw after 90 minutes will result in a replay the following Tuesday.

A ‘doublay from Noublay’ was enough to help the Glovers pick up another three points against Eastbourne on Saturday.

It was also enough to land him a spot in the Vanarama National League South Team of the Week.

We might be biased, but Josh Owers and Joe Day might consider themselves unlucky not to have made the cut, but we would say that.

Jack Paxman of Eastbourne also makes it as does former Glovers loanee, Ryan Law,now of Truro.

Good work, Frank.

 

 

As the sun shone down on local football on Saturday, the fortune of our loanees wasn’t quite so beaming.

Let’s start at Tiverton Town, where goalkeeper Lewis Williams found himself picking the ball out of his net three times as his side lost 3-0 away at Bracknell Town.

It didn’t get much better at Shepton Mallet, either who lost 5-1 at home to Helston AFC in the Western League Premier Division.

Charlie Bateson did get the goal for the Mallet, a 42nd minute free kick curled expertly into the far corner.

But… having been reduced to 10 men in the 3rd minute with the Goalkeeper sent off, it was always going to be difficult. They also had forward Jake Sloggett taken off with a suspected fractured arm… when it rains… it pours… well, metaphorically.

Finally down at Dorchester Town, they did get a vital three points.

A 2-1 win over Swindon Supermarine.

Defender Ollie Haste played the full 90 as the Magpies came from behind for the win. Glovers‘ striker Benjani Junior was an unused sub.

 

Yeovil Town’s ticket portal has updated to show that tickets for the Glovers’ FA 2nd Qualifying game against AFC Stoneham are now on sale. 

At time of writing, tickets can only be purchased in either the Thatchers Gold Terrace or in the Bamfords (main) Stand.

This includes away fans who will be situated in blocks, AA, A and some of B in that main stand.

Click HERE to purchase yours

Prices are;

Adults – £10,
Senior, Armed Forces, Under 21s – £7
Under 16s, Under 12s – £2

Please be prepared to show the appropriate ID if buying a concession ticket.


The match is on Saturday 16th of September with a 3pm kick off.

All money’s raised from ticket sales (after costs) will be split 50/50 between the two sides, yesterday, the Stoneham chairman said it was a ‘dream’ tie and they would love to get as many of the 1500 people associated to their club through their many teams to the game.

If the game is a draw at 90 minutes a replay will be arranged, winners of the tie will pick up £3375 from the competition prize fund and £1125 will be distributed to the losing clubs

An away win, the first in 220 days. Three away goals in a winning league match away from Huish Park, for the first time in nearly two years. It was a thriller alright, Ben had the stream on, here’s what he took away from the game.

Five conclusions were tough… it could have easily been ten! But we’ve whittled it down. 


Firstly, let’s talk about Jordan Young.

According to Mark Cooper post match, we parted with somewhere in the region of £5,000 to secure his services last season. 

At the back end of the 2022/23 season, we had a kid with bags of potential, down on his luck, getting to grips with the full time game. He looked raw but like he had something about him, what I saw last night was probably the best 60 minutes I’ve seen of him in Green and White (well, Yellow and Black).

He’s got a set piece delivery to match plenty of those who have smashed a dead ball for the Glovers, but I saw more than that, a fight to get the ball off his team mates, to be direct, to give defenders a nightmare, but also a desire to do his defensive work too.

He’ll probably admit he got bullied off the ball at times last season, but he’s clearly gaining strength, he’s clearly a confidence player and his confidence must be sky high right now. He’s fast approaching ‘first name on the team sheet’ status.

Let’s watch that free kick again shall we? – You don’t save those.

I watched on the stream and whilst initially had radio coverage on as well, I quickly realised that the camera and microphone positioning allowed for a real insight into Mark Cooper’s touchline style. So I listened, and learned two things.

Firstly, the Weston super-Mare fans situated near the dugout need to wash their mouth out with soap… some very fruity language on show, at times it bordered on abusive actually – Nouble, Worthington and Cooper all coming under regular fire far beyond what I would call ‘normal’ football style ‘banter’ (I hate that word).

But seriously, someone at WSM should remind their fans, that camera and microphone picks it all up… 

Anyway, I digress, Mark Cooper still kicks every ball, still makes every header and really offered a hands on approach to his coaching.

He, at times, literally helped Jamie Sendles-White through the first half, screaming where to be, where to move. Being out of position at right back would have been new to him and he got all the help he needed and put in a very solid display during the first 45.

Cooper claims the assist to Young’s free kick (above) shouting at JS-W to make sure Young took the spot kick and not allow Murphy to pull rank, he kept the team motivated and kept reminding them of the basics; “Face Up”, “Shape”, “Sprint back in”, “Less turnovers lads”… stuff that might seem fairly trivial, but for me shows he’d be out there himself if he could.

Mark Cooper in discussion with captain Josh Staunton during the 2-1 home win over St Albans. Picture courtesy of Mike Kunz.

Frank Nouble – the Green and White Berbatov?

We’ve maybe been slightly critical of Nouble on the podcast over the last couple of games, but I really tried to watch him closely in this line up. There were times he frustrated, there were times he seemed to go quiet and times he could arguably have done a bit better with what was given to him in the way of service, but then… Bang. Goal.

One he had to be strong for, one he had to get spot on under the pressure he was facing, and finished it off well from close range.

I think, there’s no doubt in my mind he’s got all the qualities to be a real force at this level, I’m not sure he’s a back-to-goal striker, I think we want to see him ball at feet, running at players and making it really difficult to win the ball from. 

But, much like Berbatov, quiet spells, drifting in and out of games all look strange, but if he takes the chances that come his way, he could easily find himself up towards double figures in no time at all. Almost without anyone noticing.

Let’s have his goal too shall we?

Squad depth, rotation and doing the dirty work in places you wouldn’t normally.

Last night we started with a central defender at right back, a right back at the heart of the midfield three and ended with Matt Worthington in an attacking left position and all whilst managing several players on Yellow cards.

It hadn’t really hit me until last night, just how stretched this season will become. Games aren’t 90 minutes, last night went well over 100, seven Glovers players were booked, taking a couple of them to within touching distance of a ban. 

Minutes in the legs will need to be managed, both Jordan Young and Rhys Murphy were probably brought off with their fitness just been looked after and most, if not all of the team were really flagging towards the end.

If Jake Hyde has a sore calf and JS-W has an achilles concern then that’s two more people to think about. It was great that Josh Owers came in and played so well, but we will certainly need our full squad. We may need to ask about Will Dawes, the only one of those with a squad number not to make a first team squad so far, we may even need to ask about Scott Pollock – spotted back training at Alvington yesterday – every squad member is going to do a lot of pitching in, playing out of position and being asked a lot of. 

That’s fine, but it’s going to take some man management, we don’t want benches going unfilled, we need our full range of options if we are to achieve our goals this season.

Jordan Young celebrates his first goal for the club.
Picture courtesy of Mike Kunz.

Finally, 850 fans and everyone of them deserved that moment.

I’ve made no secret of the fact that I’m gutted to be so far away this season, but watching (and listening) to the game last night, the fans were exceptional. It was noted post match by all three of Cooper, Staunton and Young how important you are. 

We’ve continued to sell away tickets in our numbers this season, I’m sure that’ll continue and so long as you keep doing yourselves and the club proud, you’re helping. You’re 100% helping.

Is it a cheesy, cliche to say you got the team over the line… maybe, but there’s no doubt in my mind, that big crowds, crowds within touching distance of the pitch can make a difference, can get their support into the minds of both sets of players.

Oh how I wanted to be in the away end on Tuesday, to watch our team play good football at times, to keep a decent enough side at arms length for periods and to be honest, pick up about as comfortable a 3-2 win as is possible, on another day that game ends 6-1 and no one bats an eyelid.

On to Eastbourne!

Yeovil Town goal scorer Jordan Young spoke to the Glovers’ YouTube channel following the 3-2 win over Weston super Mare on Tuesday.

“I’m definitely happy, it was a good start to the game, happy with the result, we made hard work of it, but we got there in the end.”

Young also claims an assist and a pre-assist (if that’s even a thing) as it was his set pieces which saw the other two Glovers goals, he was delighted to contribute.

“Coops wasn’t playing today so, I had to take them from both side which was fine, we got off to a flying start, wen’t 2-0 up and we probably should have done better to see the game out easier than we did – if we don’t concede in the first half, we go in 2-0 and it’s comfortable”

“I want to play every game that I can, it’s been a bit tough, but I’ve got there in the end.”

There was credit for Weston’s approach, the newly promoted side gave a good fight in the search for a way back into the game.

“They’re a good team, started really well, when we went 2-0 up and they scored, they had a lot of pressure towards the end of the first half especiialy, but we came out, got the goal and then it was comfortable, we probably should have made it 4-1.

“It’s tough, we don’t want to end games like that, we want to end games in control and better than we did, but we got there in the end.”

The final, and main word was (again) for the fans, 850 additional players making sure the Glovers recorded their first away win in 220 days.

“Every game we’ve played, especially at home, but obviously away too, we had a good 800 (850, Jordan actually ?) here, it’s massive, it get’s us over the line at the end.”