Ian Perkins (Page 20)

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Phil Jevons of Yeovil Town stretches for the ball

Not many strikers like Phil Jevons come around in your time supporting a football club. Luckily for Yeovil Town supporters, we had Phil, one of the purest goalscorers ever to pull on the shirt. He played 84 times for the Glovers and scored 42 goals, propelling us to League One and keeping us there too.

On this episode of the Glovers Past Ian and Dave spent a brilliant hour reminiscing with Phil about his time at Yeovil, the players he played with and his many goals. Settle in and enjoy this chat with a proper striker.

Phil Jevons of Yeovil Town shoots at goal

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Shooter McGavin lets fly. Pic Gary Brown

Brett McGavin scored as good a volley as you’ll ever see, as Yeovil ran out 2-0 winners at Woking. 

Speaking to BBC Somerset’s Mark Stillman, The Shooter said his opening strike was ‘up there’ in the goal rankings.

He said: “It’s up there. Scoring goals is always a good feeling. But ones like that, yeah, you do have to take them in, because they’re special. I was saying on the last interview, I’ve just done, when it goes that high, you just have to concentrate on getting a good contact, and thankfully, it’s gone in the back of the net. There was a moment where I thought maybe that I can’t get there. But once I made the decision to go to the ball, there was only one thing on the mind. And like I said, just got concentrate on the strike. And thankfully, it went in.”

The midfielder echoed the thoughts of his manager, in that he felt the team could probably perform better. He said: “No matter how Woking are doing in the league it’s always a tough away fixture. We could probably perform better, but as soon as they went down to 10 men, we knew that we should come away with three points, and we done enough to get them today.

“We try to gain control as early as possible. And I think us gaining control then caused the red card because they were frustrated. So, yeah, gaining control was huge for us today.”

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Yeovil returned to winning ways this afternoon with a 2-0 win on the road at Woking. A thronker from Brett McGavin and a tap in from Finn Cousin-Dawson was enough against the ten-man Cardinals.

Speaking to BBC Somerset’s Mark Stillman after the match, Mark Cooper said his side needed the win.

“[I’m] Delighted with the result, not so much the performance, but I understand, because we’re a bit edgy. We lost three games in a week and put ourselves under a bit of pressure. And it was just about getting a win to get us off and running again, to restore a bit of confidence.

“We were competent today. We weren’t overly effective in the last third, but we had good chances as well to win the game. But, today was just about three points. There’s loads of things we did wrong, but we had a right go. We were really organised and never really looked in danger of losing the game.

“I thought we could have been quicker with the ball, but listen, it’s tough to play against 10 men. It’s just about winning the game and we managed to do that.”

Brett McGavin’s volley got the Glovers off the mark after Jack Stretton received a red card for an elbow on Cousin-Dawson and Cooper felt his team needed some magic: “We needed a bit of magic. Once they went to 10 men, they get bodies back and we needed just a bit of magic to get us going. Brett supplied us with that. He’s scored some cracking goals this year, and that was another.”

Matt Worthington returned off the bench after picking up an injury at Tamworth and Cooper was happy to see some squad depth return.

“Because of last week, it’s been a little bit frustrating for everyone with the sendings off, and it’s really rocked to us in terms of not being able to get balanced team out. So hopefully that gives us a bit of a G up now. We’re close to getting Wannell back, Dom back, Worthy, back on the pitch today. So we’re close to getting a bit of depth back to the squad.” 

Ed James was left out of the side after his debut on Wednesday, but the manager confirmed he’d be in contention for the FA Trophy clash with W*ymouth.

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Despite late drama at Huish Park again, it was another defeat for Yeovil. Here are my conclusions from a cold night in Somerset.

We took a while to get going again. It’s now two home matches in a row where Mark Cooper has had to make tactical tweaks to enable Yeovil to get a foothold in the game. Up until half an hour – when Yeovil switched to a 4-2-3-1 – it was all Barnet and they could have gone in two or three up. We saw similar when Halifax came to Huish. At times this season when we’ve matched other teams in a 3-4-3 we’ve come unstuck and the same happened last night. Once we changed shape though, I felt we nullified most of Barnet’s threat.

After our equaliser I thought we’d go on to win. We certainly had the momentum in the second half and James Plant’s hard work earned a well deserved equaliser. Instead, we allowed Barnet back into it and they could have gone back in front almost immediately with Stead and Kanu fluffing chances. That gave Barnet a bit of life and Collinge’s header really took the wind out of the green and white sails. Following the strife at York, I felt we gave Barnet a bloody nose and showed that we’re not a million miles away, but I saw the difference between a side that now sits top and a side that’s trying to keep pace with the playoff pack. That said…

I think it was a penalty. There’s been plenty of debate about the penalty decision right at the end of the match and I think the referee got it wrong. You can normally tell from the reaction of the defending team if they feel a player has gone down easily and the Barnet players didn’t react in an angry or aggressive way to debutant Ed James. Looking back at the highlights, replay and super-slowmo video, it looks like the kind of the decision that more often than not goes the way of the home team. Unfortunately we’re Yeovil Town, and it feels like we never really get those 50-50 decisions.

I felt we were missing the nippy fellas. In the first half, we were crying out for some pace and dynamism and only once we shifted shape did we see James Plant get his legs really pumping. I thought we could have introduced Josh Sims or Dylan Morgan earlier to get some runners in behind. We’ve gone from having the little technicians like Pearson, Morgan, Young, even Sonny to the taller lads, Nouble and Borges supporting Jarvis up top but, I thought it slowed us down.

This was the tricky run of fixtures. Some will be surprised that there’s not uproar around last three results, but I think the context of the matches and general expectations has left quite a balanced response. For all the hyperbole and expectation at the start of the season, most realistic supporters will see a mid-table finish as success. Despite the three losses on the bounce, we’re still two points outside the playoffs, and now with Woking and Braintree either side of W*ymouth, there’s a chance for the Glovers get back to winning ways ahead of the Christmas period.

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Yeovil boss Mark Cooper spoke to BBC Somerset’s commentator Chris Sykes following the 4-0 loss at York. The boss described the afternoon as ‘wasted’ and that he’d need to sign a couple of centre halves before the visit of Barnet on Wednesday. Here’s the transcript of the conversation. You can listen here at 38:50.

CS: A difficult afternoon. Mark. What your initial thoughts off the back of that?

MC: Yeah, the game’s over as a contest after 10 minutes with the sending off and then the goal – game’s over. So yeah, then it was just a long afternoon. We can’t make that mistake at the back, you know, we’ve got a centre half trying to Cruyff turn on the edge of his own box. Compounds it by getting sent off, and then they scored for the free kick. Game over. So it was an afternoon wasted. It was a trip wasted. Our chairman paid for us to stay in a lovely hotel last night. Supporters, 340, or whatever of them, traveled untold miles in horrendous weather and we played a 10 minute game, and the rest was just a waste.

CS: Is that kind of the point you’ve made to the players, after about fans making the trip?

MC: Our fans always make the trip. So we, we know we’ve got brilliant fan. I’m about more disappointed with the discipline and decision making of some in some key areas. You know, that’s two more defenders sent off today. We’ve already lost Jake Wannell. You know, the players know that we’re struggling for defenders, and then one of them gets sent off in the last minute with a ridiculous tackle, which probably is yellow, but referee can’t wait to send him off. But for me, that’s just ridiculous decision making.

CS: Ultimately, he’s put himself in that position when you’re whether it’s yellow or red. He still put himself in position when he didn’t need to?

MC: The ref was only gonna book green shirts today, he was never going to book reds. But he [Bernard] still shouldn’t put him, if he knows that as well, he shouldn’t put himself in that position. The game’s over. No point making that tackle. So the discipline is something that I have to address, because that’s too many now.

CS: The fact that it now has left you very short in defense ahead of, ahead of the next few matches.

MC: Yeah, we have to go and sign. We have to go and sign a couple of players, because we’ve only got Morgan Williams. He’s the only centre half. So yeah, we’ll have to go and sign a couple of centre halves before Wednesday.

CS: How frustrating is it for you as a manager when you when you know you’re in the situation, the team knows in situation without Jake Wannell, and then two more get sent off. How frustrating is that it’s

MC: It’s just the level we’re at. Players make more bad decisions than the level above that and level above that. When we have our best defensive unit on the pitch, we don’t concede. So when we don’t have that on we’re in trouble.

CS: In terms of the you obviously went one nil down, down to 10 men very early on. What did you make of your side and the reaction to that throughout the first half

MC: Yeah. But then we the goalie throws one in. Ollie’s been fantastic, but he had one of those games today which keepers do. You, he’s thrown the second one in, it’s definitely game over then, because you’re playing against a good team that’s possession based. I said at halftime to the players, I take 4-0 now, so we got away with it.

CS: And you know, another game against a tough opponent, again, Barnet, coming on Wednesday. You know, where does this kind of leave you?

MC: Good game for us. Good game. We know we have to be at it, otherwise we’ll get turned over. I’ve just asked the players now, like, they just need a bit of honesty, a little bit of humility. And people to put their hand up, and say I’ve let the club down today, and we need a response. So as a staff we”l certainly be doing that. I’ve just asked the players there, that we need a little bit of honesty after that game. And it’s not about, ‘well, it wasn’t me, it was somebody else’. Everybody’s got to have luck in the mirror today and say we need to be better than that.

CS: Is there kind of a feeling of obviously bad results there, but generally speaking, it’s just one?

MC: Not really no, because we wasted an opportunity last week to get three points. With this game in mind it put us in a real position to attack this game. And last Saturday has put us in the difficult position now where we’ve come to York and got beat and now we got to play at the top team in Barnet so players have to respond.