Ian Perkins (Page 83)

It’s difficult to conclude anything from the first preseason friendly with so many changes through the game, but it’s been a while so why not try eh?

Matt Buse looked the best of the trialists. It’s not particularly a secret that one of our anonymous trialists is former Torquay midfielder (and local lad) Matt Buse. In the brief time he was on the pitch last night he looked calm in possession and probably the one trialist who looked ready to step up and be a part of the squad.

It was good that the owner was in attendance. We’ve had plenty of pops at Scott Priestnall for not going to games, but you can’t complain if he arrives in Taunton for a pre-season . There were plenty of conversations with Chris Hargreaves and both Stuart Robins and Martyn Starnes were in attendance too, so there was executive representation at the match which is a positive. Let’s just hope they saw enough to know…

…we need a lot more! It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand the squad isn’t where it needs to be yet. Equally, I’m of the mind that it’s still early days. We’re a bit of an unknown quantity, we don’t know what system the manager will prefer (although it was a back five with wing backs) and as he said when he spoke to the Gloverscast, managers will want to get a couple of weeks of preseason in before deciding on the futures, or lack thereof, of their contracted squads.

It will be interesting to see which trialists remain. Some of these may be back for Exeter and get another chance of for a run out but, as with last year, many will move on. (Come back Harlain!) The manager spoke intently to a couple of them after the match so he and his coaching staff must have seen something. Other than Buse and Chiori Johnson nobody stuck out.

I won’t read too much into this game. It’s fitness, it’s minutes under the belt and it’s avoiding injuries. We went into this match without two key players in Lawson D’Ath and Charlie Wakefield and I imagine Ollie Hulbert will be a starter too. Hopefully we see some additions in the coming days and we’ll get more of an idea about the style of play Chris Hargreaves wants to implement as we progress towards the big BT kick off at Scunthorpe.

The first ever Gloverscast End of Season Survey has closed and a huge thank you to the 499 (argh!) of you who took part.

Someone with much better numeracy skills has kindly offered to trawl through the data and make it digestible for our readers. The majority of the questions were statements on a scale of 1-7, giving participants the opportunity to score a 1 for ‘strongly disagree’ and 7 a score for ‘strongly agree’.

Here are Five Conclusions we’ve drawn from an early look at your answers.

Supporters don’t think there is a clear plan for the future of the club. With a score of 2.25 out of 7 and with 43.9% of respondents scoring 1 and 21.2% scoring 2, it is abundantly clear that supporters of the club don’t know what the plan for the club is. Granted, since the survey we’ve heard the goal is to get out of the National League, but what we’re putting in place to enable that, what the future of the land looks like, what the future of the facilities looks like is all a bit vague at the moment.

Supporters don’t believe YTFC will benefit from the SSDC deal. The SSDC deal to purchase Huish Park and the surrounding land remains controversial, and probably will do for some time yet. In response to the statement: Yeovil Town FC will benefit from the SSDC deal to purchase Huish Park, the average score was 2.59. To the statement: Scott Priestnall will benefit from the SSDC deal to purchase Huish Park, the average score was 6.0, with 52.9% strongly agreeing. In response to: SSDC will benefit from the SSDC deal to purchase Huish Park, the average score was 5.35 out of 7. There remains a demand for clarity and transparency about the shape of the deal and what the future holds, because as it stands, supporters thing the club is on course to lose out.

There has been quite the drop in season ticket holders over the last five seasons. Of the 499 responses, 59% have had season tickets in the past five years. 38% of respondents are currently season ticket holders. The trend is obvious, we’ve seen attendances dropping season on season since Darren Way was in charge. Personally, I think that final Way season was probably one of the most damaging in terms of getting people through the turnstiles. Last season’s challenge has been talked about ad nauseum, but something we’ve probably not spoken about much ahead of the forthcoming season is the cost of living crisis. People will be making decisions about their spending, especially come the winter and another energy price increase.

Communication should be a priority area. With a score of 2.01 on the statement: The Club has communicated with supporters well this season, there is work to be done to improve. This can be looked at in a couple of ways, a largely absent owner until April this year, with sporadic statements in between has left a feeling of disenchantment. But there are quick wins for the club to implement. To the statement: I know who to contact when I want to make my views heard the average score was 2.93. Give supporters an email address they know they can reach out to where they’ll be heard, because the survey shows us that most don’t feel valued as supporters.

The Supporters Alliance Group needs revaluating. With a score of 3.31, people slightly disagree that the SAG is effective as a means of communicating with the club. And if the SAG is the platform for supporters to make their views heard, most don’t feel they’re listened to and acted upon. Of the 499 responses we received, over 71% are not part of any of the organisations on the SAG. 22% are members of the Glovers Trust, and 7.6% are members of the Green and White Supporters Club. There needs to be room for more voices or a refresh which welcomes new people into the fold so that the group can be truly representative of supporters of the club.

While a professional crunches the data for us to share it, I’d like to say a big thank you to the readers of the Gloverscast for being part of our first survey of this kind. We’ll conduct another one at the end of next season so that we can continue to provide you with a platform for feedback.