Foot In The Opposition Camp – Rochdale (Away)
It’s a toughie today. Yeovil head to Spotland to face top of the table Rochdale. Could they? Ben’s caught up with Charlotte from The Dale Way podcast to get the low down on the hosts.
It’s a toughie today. Yeovil head to Spotland to face top of the table Rochdale. Could they? Ben’s caught up with Charlotte from The Dale Way podcast to get the low down on the hosts.
Settle in.
Yeovil Town’s Chief Strategy Advisor spends the best part of two hours in Gloverscast company talking through the recent events at Huish Park. We look ahead to the future and try and get into some of the issues that have been bothering supporters of late.
September was crazy wasn’t it?
Here’s how the results went, but that doesn’t begin to tell the story.
September | ||
02.09.25 | Solihull Moors | 1-0 |
06.09.25 | York City | 1-3 |
13.09.25 | Woking | 1-0 |
20.09.25 | Tamworth | 0-1 |
24.09.25 | Aldershot Town | 4-1 |
27.09.25 | Altrincham | 1-0 |
30.09.25 | Sutton United | 2-1 |
Danny Webb was named Yeovil manager on the 12th, taking charge on Tamworth on the 20th before his departure was announced on the 22nd with Richard Dryden being appointed as manager until the end of the season.
Fill out the tracker below.
Ugh, another FA Cup defeat for Ian, Dave and Ben to chat through. We try to balance the context of everything, but you can’t help but feel things are bit bluergh after that.
Luke McCormick said it was devastating to lose out in the FA Cup 4th Qualifying Round, but that the Glovers would stick together and bounce back next weekend.
Speaking to BBC Somerset’s Mark Stillman, the midfielder said: “We’re devastated in there. We thought that we started the game slowly. The sending off definitely helped us. And then it’s about quality in both boxes. We definitely had the chances. And look, it is what it is. We’re very disappointed. Sorry to the travelling fans. It’s obviously devastating to to exit the FA Cup at this stage, but full focus back on the league and we need to stick together.”
McCormick said the team got a ‘livener’ at half time “It’s a little bit of a godsend, their sending off. And then, yeah, obviously it gives you a little bit more time on the ball. First half, I didn’t think we were at the races. We got a little livener at half time. And then, listen, we come out second half. It’s always tough, it’s a bit of a lottery when, when a team go down to 10 men but I think we created enough today to get a result. But listen, that’s football. Like I said, we’re bitterly disappointed, and we’ll stick together, and we will bounce back next weekend.”
The 26-year-old concluded: “We wanted to win the game. We wanted to progress. That didn’t happen. So we do what we normally do, win, lose or draw. We come in Monday, we analyse the game, we have honest conversations, we look how we can improve, and then full attention turns to the league, where we’ve been on a good run of late.”
For the second season in a row, Yeovil Town fell at the first hurdle in the FA Cup to lower league opposition, this time at the hands of ten-man Hemel Hempstead.
Richard Dryden spoke to BBC Somerset’s Mark Stillman and said his side struggled to get going: “We didn’t start. We didn’t start at all. Rode our luck a little bit. The first 10-15, minutes, we didn’t play like we wanted to play. [We] went long, but they get a man sent off. And you think, right, let’s go and nail these to the post. But it never happened. We didn’t get going, didn’t defend well. We get done by a corner, which we should stop. We worked on them when they go short, some people have turned off. Is that down to us? Is it down to the whole group? It probably is, Yeah.”
Since taking over as manager until the end of the season, Dryden’s matches have featured a high-tempo, high energy Yeovil side but that just didn’t happen today, with Dryden saying the Glovers didn’t ‘turn up.’
“If you’re watching the game, you’re looking at them, how we’ve played the majority of the time, the last month or six weeks, where there’s been high tempo and we didn’t, I didn’t sense that today. This is a big day: FA Cup qualifying round for the first round, and we, as a group haven’t turned up,” Dryden said.
Harvey Greenslade and Byron Pendleton combined in the second half, with Greenslade drawing Yeovil level and Dryden said they tried to exploit Hemel, who were a man down from the 25th minute, on the wings.
“We identified the wide areas when people are down to ten men is a big area. And we did it with with passing, we did it with big diagonals, and we got in and created enough. But again, we get done with a sucker punch in the last 10 minutes.”
Dryden reiterated the support he’s received from the board, but that the search goes in for new signings.
He said: “The board has given us money to spend. And we’ve inquired [about] two or three, like I said earlier before the game, they haven’t come off. We’ve got to keep looking and keep looking and getting players in. With the injuries we need to get them in quite quick, but again, we’ve got to get the right ones, what suit us.”
The winning run finished rather abruptly on Saturday with Boreham Wood putting on a show. Ian, Ben and Dave are back to chat through the defeat and what we think needs to happen next. We take your GCQs and have a voice note from Tim Hubble!
It was a big old bump back to reality yesterday as Boreham Wood put Yeovil Town to the sword in a 3-0 defeat for the Glovers. Mike Hudson was at Huish Park and here are his Five Conclusions.
It was always going to be a tough one. Boreham Wood have readjusted to this level as if they never left, with Luke Garrard’s side scoring plenty of goals and winning plenty of games since returning to the National League. Meanwhile, we’ve been recovering from a turbulent start to the season with impressive wins against struggling Sutton, Altrincham, and Aldershot. This recent form has rightly created a lot of positivity over the last ten days. However, Saturday was always going to be a much bigger test, and give us a much clearer picture of where we are as a club. The answer was humbling. In truth, at times it looked like we were playing a club a level higher than us, rather than a few places in the table at the start of play. There was plenty of fast flowing, attractive and attacking football at Huish Park on Saturday, but it was coming from the away team.
We had our backs to the wall from the outset. The warning signs came fast and early as we struggled to deal with the Boreham Wood press and attack. The boys in Green and White struggled to keep hold of the ball for any length of time, and we spent a lot of the game penned in our own half as a result. While there is much to say for not changing a winning formula, after the shift these players have put in of late, this game was probably the time to add some freshness. Of course hindsight is 20-20, but in a game in which we were always likely to spend large periods without the ball, legs were going to be important and unfortunately I think we were lacking them. As we neared half time, the huge positive was that we had somehow stayed in the game, but as the stormy conditions continued, their second goal on the stroke of half time knocked the wind out of our sails completely.
Too many players were off it. I’ll say it again… Boreham Wood are a good side. They are playing the type of football I dream that we one day might. But we won’t get anywhere by just admiring them as a superior team. We have to reflect on our own performance, and the reality was too many players weren’t at it. There were mistakes and poor decision a-plenty. It would have been a tall task with everyone firing at 100%, but with a lot of players below par and a few really struggling it was mission impossible. That’s not a criticism of this squad, who have been unreal of late. It was an almost an inevitable outcome of lots of games, lots of turmoil, a small squad, and two teams with seemingly different ambitions. They kept battling to the end, and we arguably had our best period in the last quarter of the match.
Jed Ward is ridiculous. I know it’s nothing new, but what a keeper we have between the sticks. It’s rare that you lose 3-0 and your keeper wins Man of the Match, but he deserved the accolade. Three goals did not flatter Boreham Wood at all, and without some brilliant stops and quick thinking, it could easily have been six. We were humbled at home, but Jed stopped it being an humiliation.
This team need help from above. The games are going to keep coming thick and fast, and if we have any intentions of a much needed cup run, alongside remaining competitive in the League, this team will need some help. Charlie Cooper, Jacob Maddox and James Daly getting closer to a return, may just feel like new signings. The board tried to dampen the fan noise after Danny Webb’s departure by promising increased funds, but so far we haven’t seen that turn into scarf based social media posts. It would be good to see some fresh bodies through the door soon, especially with bookings piling up, and a couple of players picking up knocks on Saturday. We saw how quickly a season can ebb away in the second half of our last campaign, and we are going to be asking a lot of our paper thin squad to keep going through a busy winter period. More than that, it would be good to see some sign of intent from this new ownership, and plans that extend beyond the end of the season. Huish Park crowds are not growing back to the 3000 number at the moment, although they were in fine voice considering. Also I do have this nagging feeling of discomfort … Yes, context is very important, and there is lots of that, but personally I don’t want this club to get too used to being content with home losses to ‘better teams’ at a level we should aspire to be getting out of. Not for long anyway.
Three wins in a row for Richard Dryden’s Glovers! Ian and Ben welcome Ollie Marsh back on the Gloverscast to talk through the 2-1 win over Sutton and the impact Richard Dryden is having. We look ahead a bit and take your GCQs.
Thank you to Dan Franklyn and the car full of Essex Glovers for the voice note!
It’s the first Wednesday of the month and that means Glovers Past!
On this episode Dave is joined by Seb White to chat to formers Glovers glove man, David Coles.
Gloverscast © 2025
Cookie | Duration | Description |
---|---|---|
cookielawinfo-checbox-analytics | 11 months | This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics". |
cookielawinfo-checbox-functional | 11 months | The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional". |
cookielawinfo-checbox-others | 11 months | This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other. |
cookielawinfo-checkbox-necessary | 11 months | This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary". |
cookielawinfo-checkbox-performance | 11 months | This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance". |
viewed_cookie_policy | 11 months | The cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. It does not store any personal data. |