Latest Yeovil Town News (Page 337)

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Two new signings will arrive to bolster Yeovil Town’s squad ahead of the August Bank Holiday weekend double header, according to manager Chris Hargreaves.

Chris Hargreaves.

Speaking ahead of Saturday’s visit from Dagenham & Redbridge and Monday’s trip to Wealdstone, the boss said that he had the backing of chairman Scott Priestnall with finances following the exit of star man Tom Knowles on the eve of the season.

Asked about the support he was receiving by BBC Somerset’s Sheridan Robins, Hargreaves said: “Hopefully there will be two (new signings) announced for the weekend.

“It’s something we want to do, we need to bolster the squad, Scott (Priestnall) has been supportive with that so that’s positive.

“Whoever we bring in has to believe they can affect this club and there will be a couple announced before the weekend.”

One player who the Glovers are expecting back for the visit of Dagenham & Redbridge is central defender Ben Richards-Everton who has missed the past three matches through injury.

The former Barnet player suffered a knee injury in the opening day defeat at Scunthorpe United which Hargreaves revealed recently was not as bad as originally feared and he will be back for the upcoming two matches.

Sam Pearson. Picture courtesy of Mike Kunz.

The boss is also hoping on loan Bristol City winger Sam Pearson, who the club announced this week has extended his stay until January, will be fit after missing last weekend’s 2-2 draw at Altrincham with a back injury.

He said: “We’re not sure if it’s going to be Saturday, Monday or either. He took a serious knock (against Barnet) and it’s going to be right down to the wire if he makes it for Saturday.

“Sam has been a bright spark and the fans have taken to him straight away. Unfortunately he’s had a bit of a niggle which has kept him out of Saturday’s game, so we are hopeful he can make this Saturday.

“It’s been a bit frustrating. The first week we lost Knowlesy, big Ben (Richards-Everton) got injured and the third week Sam (Pearson) was not available, but you’ve got to adapt and rotate players and get over it.

“Fingers crossed Sam is fit but if he isn’t it gives someone else a chance.”

The boss said young Exeter City defender Alfie Pond was “in the thinking” for last weekend and would be again in the upcoming fixtures.

He added: “Like every team we have these fixtures over the weekend which are incredibly tight, it’s probably too much at this level to play that amount of games in quick succession.

“I have got to use the whole squad because the boys are are chomping at the bit to get minutes and we don’t want to overload it with lads on loan, but the boys that have come in have been excellent.

“Some of them are young lads, they have to find their feet somewhere but they have got to earn it and train well in this first team because it’s a tough standard.

“I have already got in mind what we might have to do with such a quick turnaround but it’s about the lads showing me they want to do it.”

There is no sign of former striker Marcus Stewart making his Head of Player Development role at Huish Park full-time at the moment.

The ex-Ipswich Town man, who scored more than 250 goals in his playing career, became part of the Huish Park coaching team alongside Hargreaves and assistant manager Chris Todd on a part-time basis, and has been absent from the touchline for a number of matches.

Asked whether he expected Stewart to make his role full-time, the manager said: “Not at the moment. It will remain as it is at this stage.

“He adds a lot of value and when you look at the strikers, Fish (Alex Fisher) is desperate to score and working hard, but we want him to work within that 18 yard box and be that talisman.

“Gime (Toure) has scored already, Mal (Linton) has two in four, so there has been that attacking mindset and a lot of the lads have had chances to score.”

 

Young goalkeeper Max Evans will be out for “a couple of months” after suffering an injury whilst on loan at Southern League side Larkhall Athletic.

Max Evans during his loan spell at Larkhall Athletic. Picture courtesy of Jeremy Richards

It has been feared the 20-year-old had suffered an anterior cruciate ligament injury after he was spotted on crutches at Huish Park.

Hargreaves said: “It’s not brilliant news for the lad, it will keep him out for a couple of months, for sure, but it could have been a lot worth.

“I’m gutted for him to get that so early on (in his loan spell) because he’s a fantastic individual.”

He said reports back from Truro City boss and former Glovers’ midfielder Paul Wotton around defender Ollie Haste and midfielder Toby Stephens who are both on loan at the Cornish outfit.

Stephens has been missing with “a little injury” but made his first appearance as an 80th minute substitute for the White Tigers last weekend, whilst Haste has been a regular fixture in the side.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQAS8t–juo

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Bristol City winger Sam Pearson has extended his loan stay at Yeovil Town until January, the club has confirmed.

The 20-year-old, who featured in the Glovers’ first three fixtures, had initially arrived on a one-month loan with a view to extending.

He impressed coming off the bench in the opening day defeat at Scunthorpe United and was handed starts against both Wrexham and Barnet before missing out last weekend at Altrincham through injury.

In a statement confirming the extension, the club said: “Last weekend against Altrincham, he missed out due to a minor back injury, but the youngster will be hoping he can return for the busy bank holiday schedule.”

Dagenham & Redbridge are the visitors to Huish Park on Saturday followed by a trip to Wealdstone on Bank Holiday Monday.

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The results are in for the man of the match voting from our first two fixtures of the season against Scunthorpe and Wrexham.

For the Scunthorpe match (which we lost 2-1) our goalscorer on the day Jamie Reckord was 1st with 83 votes (59%).  ‘Mal’ Linton in 2nd with 12 votes and Matty Worthington and Grant Smith in joint 3rd with 9 votes.

Our first match at home saw us draw 1-1 with Wrexham with some impressive performances across the team. Matt Worthington  came in first with 55 votes (29%), Sam Pearson had 36 votes and both Sam Perry and Linton had 31 votes.

Well done Jamie and Matt!

If you’ve not filled out the man of the match voting form for Altrincham yet, you can do it here.

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South Somerset District Council has confirmed that “initial discussions” are underway around the development of land around Huish Park

It is now more than three months since the council bought the home of Yeovil Town FC and land around it in a deal believed to be worth £2.8m, which sees the club now rent the stadium and “core land” around it under a 30-year lease.

In response to an enquiry from the Gloverscast, Robert Orrett, Commercial Property, Land and Development Manager at SSDC, said: “I can confirm that I have joined some initial discussions about the preparation of development proposals so it is fair to say that aspect has been commenced.”

Our query followed the publication of the minutes of a Supporter Alliance meeting held at the end of June which were published by the Glovers Trust last week, which included reference to chairman Scott Priestnall saying: “There are temporary plans for new amenities in the new season, but planning permission is required to develop the club’s footprint for the future.

“The process towards achieving planning permission in order to develop the site has begun.”

The chairman also stated that any money raised through the development of the site would be “used to invest in the club in order to make it more sustainable.”

The council deal would see the ‘core’ (red) and non-core (blue) land bought by SSDC.

The minutes also included reference to Scott Priestnall telling the Alliance meeting: “The club has a four-year period to buy back the land from SSDC.”

To at least our memory on Gloverscast, we were not aware of this detail and enquired about it with SSDC and received the following response from Mr Orrett: “It is correct that Yeovil Town Holdings Limited has a four-year period during which they can buy back the whole of the YTFC freeholds that have been purchased by SSDC. In broad terms, that would reverse the purchase.

 

“Beyond that, there are continuing arrangements that are linked to the structure that enables consented non-core land to be sold off by SSDC, with the non-core lease surrendered, and the sale proceeds to be used to repay the capital SSDC has put in.

“These are following the approach summarised in the report and continue in the longer term. If the land sale price for the non-core land is high enough, then the rent for the core land that is left, reduces to a peppercorn and essentially the club can buy the core land back for £1.”

Simple right?! If you are struggling to remember what constitutes core and non-core land as part of this sale, join the club. In simple terms, the core land is indicated in the red on the map, above, and basically covers the stadium and 3G pitches outside it, with the non-core land covering the car park and top pitches at Huish Park.

Mr Orrett’s email to us concludes: “You will have noted that I refer to Yeovil Town Holdings Limited not Yeovil Town FC as the property contracts and leases were with Yeovil Football & Athletic Club Limited and Yeovil Town Holdings Limited.”

Again, to refresh your memories, Yeovil Town Holdings Limited, this is the business set up by former owners Norman Hayward and John Fry to develop land around the ground which now only has Priestnall as a director.

The other business linked to the club is Yeovil Football & Athletic Club Limited, the business which runs the football operations in effect and lists Priestnall and fellow shareholder Stuart Robins as its directors.

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Yeovil Town Under-18s get their South West Counties Youth League season underway with a home game against Cirencester Town Youth on Saturday 3rd September.

The fixture at the Alvington Playing Fields gets underway at 10.30am ahead of the first team’s home match with York City at Huish Park at 3pm.

Matt Percival. Picture courtesy of Yeovil College.

It is the first of four fixtures in September with trips to Salisbury City and Swindon Supermarine the following two weekends before ending September at home to Bridgwater United on September 24th.

On first inspection, the 11-team division looks similar to last season with the addition of BRS Coaching Youth Under-18s, based in Ringwood in the New Forest, who appear a new addition.

The pre-season campaign has seen the young Glovers lose 2-0 against Eastleigh before following that up with a 2-0 victory against Bristol Manor Farm and a 5-0 win over Tiverton Town on Thursday.

We will endeavour to keep you as up to speed with the fortunes of the Under-18s as we are able, but we’d encourage you to skip back to our chat with coach Matt Percival in June and follow his request to get down to Alvington and watch the youngsters.

You can hear Matt talking to us in Gloverscast #175 – Grilled by Dave – here.

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Ollie Haste at Truro ? Truro City YouTube

Yeovil Town’s on-loan duo Ollie Haste and Toby Stephens both played for Truro City in their 3-1 win at Winchester City on Saturday.

Haste completed another 90 minutes and almost got his first goal for the White Tigers late on in their victory too.

Midfielder Stephens started the game on the bench and was introduced as an 80th minute substitute to make his first appearance since joining the Cornish side at the start of their Southern League Premier Division South campaign.

Well done on the win, lads.

Goalkeeper Max Evans didn’t feature for Larkhall Athletic, who drew 1-1 at Cowes Sports.

He was back at Huish Park on Tuesday for the game against Barnet sporting a new pair of crutches. It is hoped the injury isn’t too serious, but scans will be needed before a return date can be planned in.

Get well soon, Max!

Stanley Anaebonam, ahead of the draw with Exeter City earlier in pre-season.

As an aside, Truro City gaffer, Paul Wotton also brought on former Glovers’ trialist Stanley Anaebonam as a late substitute. He has joined the Cornish side since departing Huish Park.

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Urgh.

Another near miss, three points snatched away from the Yeovil Town right at the death as Altrincham pegged the Glovers back twice to grab a 2-2 draw.

Our man Ben was in the Press box for BBC Somerset at Moss Lane and here are his conclusions from a frustrating afternoon in the North West.

Altrincham Away ? Ben Barrett

Oh, what might have been.

It wasn’t quite as free flowing as the game against Barnet but HargreavesBall was still the order of the day for the Yeovil Town.

The switch to a 4-4-2 from the off had me thinking we might change our style, but that wasn’t the case, we kept it simple, on the floor and tried to still use our threats from wide angles to creat chances.

Chiori Johnson added a bit more bite to the midfield, the former Torquay man isn’t afraid to put a tackle in, whilst Lawson D’Ath added a calmness to the centre of the park. With Altrincham dominating possession in a way Barnet did not on them previous Tuesday night, he helped utilise what we did see of the ball.

This is our style of play, win, lose or draw, home or away.

Lawson D’Ath. Picture courtesy of Mike Kunz.

Speaking of D’Ath. Jeez, we’ve got a classy footballer on our hands.

It’s nothing we haven’t said 100 times before, but a fit and firing Lawson D’Ath is too good for the National League. He can do it all, run with the ball, spray passes, tackle, block, get forward, defend the whole nine yards.

The point here is, how do you now manage a player who is just so influential? His first 89 minutes of the season, with two games in three days at the back end of the week on the horizon and a history of injuries that says you cannot push him too far.

It’s just as important to know when to (when we can afford to) leave him out as it is, to know when to play him.

Charlie Wakefield. Picture courtesy of Mike Kunz.

Something was up with Charlie Wakefield.

I spent the majority of the second half trying to figure out what wasn’t quite clicking with Charlie Wakefield.

He looked… a bit sad… like he needed a hug, he got one from Lawson D’Ath at one point.

A couple of times the ball slipped under his foot and out of play, a couple of crosses and shots weren’t at his usual standard and I couldn’t quite put my finger on why.

With the team now Tom Knowles-less it does feel like a lot more eyes are looking at Wakefield to be the star man (pun fully intended) and as he adapts to a new style and new role when playing wing back, the general consensus is that he’s doing just fine.

I hope he’s okay and just had one of those days, we’ve all been there.

Max Hunt vs Bournemouth

It’s time for us to talk about attacking set pieces.

I feel that it’s not been a huge strength of ours over the last couple seasons and for me, it stood out against Altrincham.

Only Notts County have had more possession this season than Alty, which means when you get the ball and the chance to get it in the box, you cannot waste it.

Sadly, we did on a few occasions, and on the times we did get a ball into the right areas, I wasn’t ever totally convinced much would come of it.

Both Josh Staunton and Max Hunt did connect with a header each from a dead ball situation, but both lacked the direction and/or power and it might be an area we have to look at improving.

There will be plenty of times this season where we give up the lion’s share of possession and I’d like us to look more dominant.

I guess we have to end with the new cult hero don’t we?

Gime Toure made a wonderful little cameo from the bench, got his goal of course, but added so much more.

He was trying to impose a little bit of game management (something we lacked after the clock ticked past 90 mins), he was trying to be clever, to buy a free kick, to slow the game down whilst also not being afraid to get on the ball and play – he and Jamie Reckord worked really well together a couple times on the left.

We’re nowhere near seeing the fittest version of Toure and that might be a while off, and the one thing we’ve been told is that there’s inconsistencies to his performances, but he looks bang up for it at the moment and he will provide an alternative to the Fish ‘n’ Mal combo which has started brightly.

All in all, it was so close, but so far from that elusive first win of the season.

Urgh.

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Lawson D’Ath. Picture courtesy of Mike Kunz.

Yeovil Town midfielder Lawson D’ath has admitted there is a sense of frustration in the Glovers’ camp, but is backing the side to come out of the other side with a win, sooner rather than later.

Speaking to the BBC Somerset’s Sheridan Robins, he said; “The good thing is we are playing well as a team. I have been in teams before where we’ve not been playing well and losing every week, but the positive for us is we are playing well and creating lots of chances.

“We just need to switch on as a group and make sure we are compact and hard to beat but still creating the chances as well.

“It is just taking that little bit of responsibility, as individuals and as a unit, and if we do that the results will come.

“We are really disappointed because we should win today, we should win Tuesday (against Barnet) and we should win Saturday (against Wrexham) and then it’s a different story.

“The luck is not on our side, but I know if we keep playing the way we are we are going to go on a good run.”

But, there was no excuses to be made, with a young squad with plenty of inexperience, D’Ath wasn’t prepared to offer up any excuses for a lack of a victory yet this season.

“We are not that young any more, we have some younger players, but it’s a good mix. Youth is not an excuse any more.

“We have a number of players who have played a couple of seasons now, it’s about stepping up. Since my injuries I have grown up a lot more, having gone through all that and coming in to the side last year and trying to be that older guy who could help some of the young lads keep going and help them with their games.

“Normally I am someone who does my own thing, but I have come to the age where I have to take that responsibility and it’s the same with Jamie Reckord, Josh Staunton,  the older ones, we are all talking.

“We have it there, it’s just little things happening and maybe it is a bit of inexperienced. But I have been in experienced dressing rooms and got worse results, so it’s about us keeping believing and we’ll start getting wins.”

D’Ath also spoke about how much he is enjoying playing in a new style, with the ball on the deck and flowing through midfield far more with he and Matt Worthington showing a new, exciting level to their performances.

“Everything the manager is doing I am enjoying and I think we are playing my best football since my first year here.

“It’s about us keeping going and believing and following the Gaffer’s orders and that luck will change, I think.”

Speaking to the Gloverscast’s Ben Barrett he then said: “Having watched Worthy, he’s done unbelievably and is showing what a good player he is. We all know he can run, work hard and get the ball back, but it’s definitely been a different Worthy this year.

“He’s taking more responsibility and looking like a really good player. He just needs to keep going every week and keep doing what he’s doing and he’ll have a good future whether with us or with someone else.

On his own fitness, the former Reading man said he was feeling good despite being taken off just before the end, completing 89 minutes in the pink and purple of the Glovers: “I felt good, I felt fit, maybe towards the end of the first half I was blowing a bit. I came out in the second half and felt really good, so it was nice. It has been frustrating because it’s not anything major, I’ve just had a minor quad problem. I played 45 on Tuesday and felt fine, but for whatever reason it just tightened up. I’m alright now.”

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Chris Hargreaves said the 2-2 draw at Altrincham was “almost the perfect away performance” for his Yeovil Town side.

The Glovers looked to have picked up their first National League win of the season thanks to a second half goal from substitute Gime Toure, only to be pegged back by an injury time equaliser.

Chris Hargreaves talks to BBC Somerset’s Sheridan Robins.

Speaking to BBC Somerset’s Sheridan Robins after the game, Hargreaves said: “I will reflect tomorrow and say it was almost the perfect away performance – but almost is not good enough.

“Those players playing again next Saturday (at home to Dagenham & Redbridge) will be determined to eradicate these errors.”

He added: “There’s still some young lads who are learning some steep lessons here. But we haven’t got time for that, we need to see that out and then it’s a perfect away performance.

“Those boys are giving everything, we know it’s a challenge even against a team that’s not fancied.

“They are a good outfit with good players and all these games are a challenge. It hurts, but the players have to move on quickly.”

The boss revealed that experienced pair Lawson D’Ath and Chiori Johnson, who were both making their first starts of the season, were forced off with cramp towards the end of the game.

Young striker Matt Grivosti replaced Johnson after 73 minutes and Sam Perry came on for D’Ath just a couple of minutes before Altrincham substitute Egli Kaja flighted a deft header in to the net to earn a point.

Hargreaves said: “Having to take Lawson and Chiori off at the end because they were cramping up doesn’t help, but players that come on have to step up.

“The younger lads have to be leaders and maybe it was a bit of miscommunication at the end when you sit back and allow a two-versus one which doesn’t need to happen.

“It is a poor bit of play from us and it’s cost us dearly.”

Toure, who has appeared off the bench in the previous two matches with mixed results, provided a spark with the home side enjoying a sustained spell of pressure at the start of the second half.

Within nine minutes of his arrival, the former Carlisle United player latched on to a loose pass from the hosts to smash home his first goal for the club at the second attempt.

The manager said: “Gime, at full fitness is a real asset and we’re bedding him in, but he showed today what he can do, create something out of nothing.”