Ian is joined by Chris Fox and Andy Craig to chat through Saturday’s huge win over Morecambe. It was a must-win and the Glovers did just that.
Thanks to Tim Hubble, Dexter Tyson and Gloverscast Chief Scout Luca Many for their voicenotes.
New boy Delano McCoy-Splatt has hailed the impact of Yeovil Town boss after he impressed on his debut in a crucial 3-2 home win over Morecambe on Saturday.
The 21-year-old joined on loan from League One AFC Wimbledon, where he has been under the eye of Dons’ assistant manager and Glovers’ legend Terry Skiverton, and was introduced as a 53rd minute substitute and had a hand in his new side’s second and third goals.
Speaking to BBC Somerset’s Josh Perkins after the game, he said: “Billy just filled me with confidence. Since I got here, the gaffer’s been very good with me, speaking to me a lot, just telling me that I’ve got the ability and telling me that when I got on the pitch I needed to show it. When you’ve got a gaffer like that who believes in you, it’s easy to go play.
“I’ve been kind of linked (with a loan move) for a little while, but it’s just about the right time. In football sometimes timing’s key, so I think it’s just got over the line now. A lot of people that I know also know Billy, so that is going to make me want to go. I just feel comfortable.”
He replaced fellow loanee midfielder Troy Perrett with the game tied at 1-1 and worked well with Terrell Works to tee up James Daly for the second before Ryan Jones added a third to put Yeovil 3-1 up shortly after the hour mark. Jack Nolan added a penalty with 15 minutes left to play and set up a nervous finish at Huish Park.
The debutant said: “At 1-1, it’s easy to go 2-1 down, so the next goal is important. I just tried to come on and change the game for the team and then even when it went 3-2 from a controversial penalty, I feel like we did well to just stay at it.
“When I got on the pitch, I knew I just got to make sure that he’s working hard, I’m working hard. The link-up with Terrell (Works, who he played alongside in Fulham’s academy) I feel like it just came to life again.”
McCoy-Splatt has featured in a number of cup competitions for his parent club this season and just a couple of weeks ago Wimbledon boss Johnnie Jackson said the midfielder was “back in the reckoning“ for his first-team having returned from injury. The youngster admitted that he had not had long to get to know his new team-mates having linked up with them on Friday.
He said: “I think I had about 40 minutes of training with the team, so I was blowing! I feel like obviously I’ve still been training at Wimbledon, but the drive down was long. I think when I got in, I was just ready to train, I had a matchday minus-one session with the team, so we gelled very well, done a bit of shape. It didn’t really feel that different today, everyone’s just good people, so it was just easy to kind of fit in.“
Yeovil Town boss Billy Rowley said the club deserved the vital 3-2 home win over Morecambe after a difficult few weeks which left them staring the National League relegation places in the face.
Goals from midfielders Brett McGavin, James Daly and Ryan Jones saw them pick up three points which leaves them seven points adrift of the dreaded dotted line on Saturday night with almost all of the teams around them failing to pick up wins.
Speaking to BBC Somerset’s Josh Perkins after the game, the manager said: “I am really supporters, really happy for the lads, everybody associated with the club in terms of staff. It’s nice to turn up today on a beautiful sunny day when the pitch is looking good and deliver a win. Everybody can enjoy this win and we can just breathe a little bit and move onto the next one.
“It’s just nice, it’s relief to get a win. I just said to the boys inside we’ve been through some tough weeks, we’ve had some really hard fixtures, playing midweek, playing weekend, non-stop, hard training, small squad, all that stuff and some of our performances, not all of them, some of them have been decent and we probably haven’t got the rewards we’ve earned.
“I feel like today we weren’t perfect, but we were good enough with the ball and we were good enough without the ball to deserve the win, so I was happy with that.”
McGavin gave the Glovers the lead after just ten minutes when his long range effort took a fortunate deflection off the post and visiting keeper Jamal Blackman on its way in to the net in front of the Thatcher’s Stand, before Gwion Edwards rifled the visitors level ten minutes before half-time.
Two stunning strikes from Daly and Jones gave a Yeovil side which has struggled in front of goal this season a two-goal advantage shortly after the hour mark before a late Jack Nolan penalty for the visitors set up a nervy finish.
Rowley was full of praise for all three goal-scorers, saying: “Brett’s was obviously a tiny bit of luck, but he’s an unbelievable striker of the ball. He might be one of the best ball strikers I’ve ever seen with both feet and when he’s lining up to shoot from there like I never really doubt it, but it’s obviously hit the post and come off the keeper’s back I think, so bit of fortune there, but we need that in these positions.
“Jonesy does what he does, he’s a little wizard. I think aiming for the near post, it’s always a risk doing that, but he’s snuck it in and his ball striking again is really good. Then JD’s like the Swiss Army Knife of Yeovil, he’s does every job, can play on the left, right, midfield, striker, at the back, like does everything, just a great athlete, top lad and I’m really happy for him. He just shows at the end what it means to him, slide tackling the goalie.”
There was also praise for young midfielder Delano McCoy-Splatt, who signed on loan from AFC Wimbledon in the week, and appeared as a substitute at the start of the second half and impressed. The 21-year-old, who has been under the guidance of former Yeovil legend Terry Skiverton at the South London club, and was instrumental in the goals for Daly and Jones.
Rowley said: “I think we’re very lucky and fortunate to get Delano. He’s had a few injuries this season that have kept him out of the Wimbledon team, but all of my friends that have worked with him (in the academy at) Fulham and all the staff at Wimbledon are convinced he should be playing for (Wimbledon) really. We’re very lucky to have received a Football League player on loan really for nine games and he makes football look easy. He’s physically so good, he can hold people off and then he’s actually got skill and tricks to like get facing forward and put people in on goal.”
The performance was a complete turnaround from the 1-0 defeat at Woking on Tuesday night when Rowley was left fuming after seeing his side fail to show up for the opening 45 minutes. He was pleased with the performance of his side in both halves against a Morecambe side which had lost just once in their previous six matches – and that was a last minute winner at home to high-flying York City.
Rowley said: “If you play one half a seven and the other half a four it doesn’t always end in your favour. Irwas really good and that was the message today, win the half,we drew it, win the second half, we won it, so we’ll keep with that message and try and strip it back and make things easier for the lads. I felt tactically we were good today, the pitch helped, I thought we made some decent enough passes and, and we had good ideas of how we were going to hurt them and we did enough to win.”
Next up Yeovil travel to Wealdstone who lost 2-0 at Forest Green Rovers on Saturday on Wednesday night, three days before their FA Trophy semi-final date with Marine next Saturday.
Asked about his next opponents, Rowley added: “I’ve seen a fair bit of them, they’ve got some really good athletes, some exceptional one-v-one players, a lot of talent in their team, like all teams at this level. They’re still doing well in the Trophy. so they’re doing well, they’ve had a change in manager, and their form’s on the up, so they have got some talent, got some ability. We’ll start reviewing them in the next 24 hours and go there and and try and get more points on the board.“
It’s a big old match day at Huish Park today. 22nd place Morecambe are in town for six-pointer. Dave caught up with Dave Salmon about The Shrimps – who’ve been on a bit of a journey since we last met in the 0-0 draw in November.
Ollie Marsh and Former Gloverscast Quiz Champion Rob Manley join Ian to talk about off the pitch, on the pitch and take your GCQs.
Thanks for Chief Scout Luca Manley for the voice note!
The latest development – or lack thereof – in the saga of Huish Park hasn’t provided any explicit clarity but if we read between the lines I think we can make some strong assumptions.
The club told me that they are continuing to “work constructively with the Council to identify a mutually agreeable position regarding the potential purchase of Huish Park. Discussions intensified earlier this year and an offer has been submitted, on which the Council has provided feedback. We are now working from that position to see where a point of agreement can be reached.” Somerset Council deny that a formal offer has been placed.
Clearly, one side thinks this is a negotiation and the other doesn’t. Somerset Council will see the terms of the buy back – closer to £3.5m and increasing, than the original £2.8m – as locked. That’s the price the owners will have to pay to reunite the land and stadium with the football club operations, a pledge made early on following their takeover.
The owners will have known that through the due diligence, but are they right to try and budge the council? At the time when the deal was announced SSDC (the council prior to the merger of all councils) said the deal would “help with the club’s survival, generate a new rental income, while protecting our ratepayers from loss or excessive risk.”
Four years on, the deal is certainly weighted in one direction, as many predicted at the time. Despite the initial claims that the deal ‘saved the club’, we’ve seen no hard evidence of what that money contributed to the club. It cleared CV Leisure’s debt with MSP capital, and I’ve been told the club saw very little of what was left after, if anything. Due diligence wasn’t done on the individual stripping the club of its assets and Somerset Council has an even higher rental income from the original deal.
“The damage done by this deal was entirely foreseeable”
We all know councils are cash-strapped, it’s a fact across the country and this month our Council tax bills are landing on the doormat with the maximum 4.99% increase. In my opinion, it’s disingenuous – still – to have ever positioned this as a deal integral to the ‘survival’ of the club. It’s not unheard of for councils to charge nominal rents to football clubs. Luton Borough Council have owned Kenilworth Road since 1989, having bought it from the club for £3.25m for a seven-year lease on a ‘peppercorn rent’ which has been extended multiple times and runs until 2028. Other examples you see are of smaller rents where the council covers the costs of running the venue. What we have is the worst of both worlds, high rent and the responsibility to maintain and operate Huish Park.
If the club was truly at the heart of this deal, the rent should not have increased, the buy back price should not increase. As it is, we’re up to nearly £230,000 a year (imagine what that would do to the playing budget) and facing an ever-increasing buyback price that any investor would want to ensure has a worthwhile return.
The damage done by this deal was entirely foreseeable. We’re on our second owner since it was completed and you need deep, deep pockets to buy it back to then develop it in the first place. Alongside operating a loss-making National League club with his expectations and high expenditure.
Of course, at the root of this there is still the fact that the deal is the deal, but I genuinely feel we have owners with good intentions and aspirations for Huish Park as a community facility, a bi-product of which would benefit the ratepayers and the people in Yeovil. The contradictory statements suggest to me that the relationship with Somerset Council isn’t quite as rosy as it could be, but in the history of Yeovil Town FC, has it ever been?
Somerset Council says no formal offer has been made to buy back Huish Park and the land surrounding it, despite the club providing confirmation to Gloverscast that an offer was submitted to Council Leader Bill Revans, CEO Duncan Sharkey and the relevant officers on December 31st 2025.
We understand the owners have engaged Headland Hospitality – a company which provides strategic hotel consulting for owners, investors and developers – to draw up plans for the Huish Park site.
We emailed club owner Prabhu Srinivasan and Chief Operating Officer, Nicholas Brayne these questions:
In a statement, they said: “We continue to work constructively with the Council to identify a mutually agreeable position regarding the potential purchase of Huish Park. Discussions intensified earlier this year and an offer has been submitted, on which the Council has provided feedback. We are now working from that position to see where a point of agreement can be reached.
“We absolutely respect the Council’s role in the process and appreciate the way in which they have engaged in dialogue with us. As you would expect with any matter involving a local authority and a significant asset such as Huish Park, these discussions can take time, particularly given the pressures councils are currently operating under.”
Contradicting the statement from the club, a spokesperson for Somerset Council said: “Whilst we continue to meet with the club and know that they have stated their intention is to buy the land back, no formal offer has been received to date.”
In November, Prabhu Srinivasan told the BBC the club hoped to purchase Huish Park and the surrounding land back from Somerset Council by the end of the season. Two months before that the club announced a two-year extension to the exclusive buy-back clause, with the Council revealing the yearly rent on the club’s home sitting at £229,130, up from the £195,000 per year former chairman ‘He Who Must Not Be Named’ saddled the club with. The buy back price is index linked and is likely to be significantly higher than £2.8m. Our maths – not a Gloverscast strong point – suggests it’s likely to be closer £3.5m. This figure will increase over time.
“Both parties have been careful to keep discussions appropriately discreet”
The club statement added: “Our focus throughout has been to ensure that any arrangement reached is firmly in the long-term interests of the football club and allows the site to be used in a way that supports the club’s sustainability and its role as a community hub.
“At this stage it is difficult to go into much more detail. Both parties have been careful to keep discussions appropriately discreet while conversations are ongoing, and we feel it is important to respect that process.
“What we can say is that an offer has been put forward and we are continuing to work positively behind the scenes to progress matters, with the aim of ultimately reuniting the club and stadium.”
We have spoken to the club following the council’s initial response and they have provided confirmation that an offer was made. We have followed up with Somerset Council to ask if they considered the club’s offer ‘formal’. They have responded to say ‘there’s nothing we can add to our statement’.
That clears that up then.
It felt a bit like groundhog day this weekend. A decent first half performance was undone by a poor second half and tiring legs. Ian and Ben ask Dave about his afternoon, discuss the malaise and take GCQs.
It’s match day and the Glovers have a new striker! Dave spoke to Boston United supporter Christian James (before the signing was announced) about the host’s season so far.
