Latest Yeovil Town News (Page 357)

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As Yeovil fell out of the FA Trophy at the first hurdle on Saturday, a total of 962 were in attendance at Huish Park to see the penalty shoot-out defeat by Dorking Wanderers. Given the circumstances around the club, that number was not totally surprising, but it has to be considered a disappointment.

Before recording Monday’s podcast, Ciderspace legend Huish Hugh asked the question when our last attendance for a first team fixture dropped below 1,000 and it’s actually pretty surprisingly rare to have less than 1,000 people at Huish Park for a first-team match.

Now, to clarify, this doesn’t include the Somerset (Men’s) Premier Cup, because the reality is that over the years we’ve used a mix of academy and first team players in the competition. Looking back over the years, including National League, FA Trophy, EFL, The League Cup, FA Cup, Johnstone’s Paint Pot Trophy (and it’s various guises) we’ve genuinely been well-supported.

Attendances below 1000

06.11.18 – West Ham United U21s – Check-A-Trade Trophy – 720
30.04.01 – Kingstonian – Nationwide Variety Club Trophy – 295
09.01.01 – Kettering Town – Nationwide Variety Club Trophy – 709
19.08.97 – Boreham Wood – ICIS Charity Shield – 873
26.11.96 – Yeading – Guardian Insurance Cup – 922
01.11.94 – Dagenham & Redbridge – Bob Lord Trophy – 719

Now, I think Saturday’s match with Dorking Wanderers was probably an anomaly. Given the cold weather, late notice of a pitch inspection, the festive period and the cost of living crisis, supporters will have certainly had a (not-so-difficult?) decision to make. However, aside from a cost-of-living crisis, these must have been factors the club have faced before. 

Malachi Linton fires in an effort. Picture courtesy of Mike Kunz.

However, with supporters on Facebook deciding to boycott the FA Trophy fixture, and the growing unrest amongst sections of the supporters, there is a need to find a way to buck the trend of dwindling attendances. We’re currently on course to have our average attendance at the levels is was in the mid to late 1990s.

Average League Attendances

SEASONCOMPETITIONAVERAGEHIGHLOWPERCENTAGE CHANGE
2013-14Football League Championship661691084463+56
2014-15Skybet League One434668373509-34.3
2015-16Skybet League Two393660512954-9.4
2016-17EFL League Two356763062749-9.4
2017-18EFL League Two272137542205-23.7
2018-19EFL League Two295342232174+8.2
2019-20*National League295150562179-0.06
2020-21**National League149815001497-65.3
2021-22National League273839361260-7.4
2022-23***National League236028801906-14.8

*19/20 – season curtailed by covid
**20/21 – Covid season with two fixtures at limited capacity
***22/23 – Season so far (obviously)

Just how the club does it, who knows? Aside from the aforementioned SMPC, there’s no silverware left for the club to compete for this season. The tragic reality is that 2022/23 is now a battle for survival in the National League under Mark Cooper. The challenge for the club is how they can turn that into a compelling reason to get those undecided fans to part with their hard-earned cash to watch some gritty football for the rest of this season. We know there will always be a hardcore of supporters who will turn out regardless – but how do we attract others?

With the first annual rent charge due to SSDC in May (no-one is telling us how much that bill is – we’ve asked!), the club now need to find an extra wad of cash that they didn’t need to when they owned their home. The clock is ticking and for all we know (we’ve been told the square route of nothing), a few extra bums on seats – or feet on terraces – isn’t going to cover it. A sale of a contracted player might, mind.

There’s a difficult pattern re-emerging that were familiar with as supporters of Yeovil Town. After relegation from the Championship, attendances dropped, as we fell from League One they dropped, and as we circled the drain in League Two with uninspiring management and ownership the attendances dropped again. The result of this was less matchday revenue, less money to spend on players, lower-standard players, worse performances and relegation. 

the silent majority have been voting with their feet

After a season behind closed doors, you’d imagine a spike of people looking to return to a past time they loved pre-pandemic – things we’re pretty good before the season was curtailed in 2019/20. Alas, a fractured relationship due to broken communication and promises is resulting fewer people attending Huish Park. While there’s been little in the way of formal protest or action, the silent majority have been voting with their feet for many seasons now. 

Some will say there needs to be a change of owner. Some will say there’s not enough people in the town. Some will say people don’t have enough money to justify it. Some will say the matchday experience isn’t value for money. Some will say the football isn’t entertaining enough.

Perhaps is just a grim mash of all of the above. However you slice it, in 2023, something has to give.

Now, this has probably all felt a bit negative, such is the mood so let me try and offer a couple solutions which might go some way to helping mend fences.

  • I think a starting point would to give supporters the promised meeting and let them know what the future holds. Open the official, formal dialogue with the wider fanbase in an open setting. Broadcast it live on zoom, record it and make it 100% transparent for supporters who can’t attend as well. Only through this level of engagement will supporters feel they are listened to as a stakeholder of the football club.
  • Explain the nuts and bolts of the deal with SSDC. Who has the buyback? How much is the rent? If there’s nothing to hide, bring it out into the open. Bring the Chief Executive of SSDC or the Unitary Council along too.
  • Or for some, just sign a striker…

Note: After writing this, it was confirmed that the club had approval to move the marquee. A good step in the right direction for match day improvements for those who like a drink beforehand.

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Plans to relocate part of the Huish Park marquee have been approved by South Somerset District Council.

The plans for the change show the marquee will be located within the compound area behind the Thatcher’s Stand closest to the main car park in the south-west corner of the site.

The size of the new facility will be a “slightly reduced size” (in length by nine metres) and conditions placed on the club by the council mean it can only be open between 9am-11pm.

In its application, the club said: “The marquee has been on site since 2003. It has been retained as proposals for a permanent structure have not yet come to fruition.

“There is a clear need for this facility on site and it is considered reasonable that the club is allowed to relocate, retain and maintain the marquee structure until it is possible to bring forward a more permanent structure.

“The proposed layout will achieve a better, more functional location and does not require any changes to vehicle access or parking at the wider stadium area.”

A picture showing the location of the planned ‘new’ marquee at Huish Park taken from SSDC planning documents.
A plan showing where the ‘new’ marquee will be located – it’s the little yellow windmill in the bottom right.

The council – who are also the club’s landlord and owners of the land they are making a decision on, let us not forget – confirmed the club has temporary permission for five years. This would suggest that the hint at “a more permanent solution” is to come at some point in the next five years – or the can gets kicked down the road and a further ‘temporary’ permission request is submitted. We’ll hear in 7-10 days, no doubt…..

Such plans would tie up with previous comments made by director Stuart Robins a couple of months ago when he spoke about using the marquee to create “a fan zone behind the Thatcher’s Stand” at Huish Park.

Speaking to Three Valleys Radio’s ‘In Conversation With…..’ programme, he said: “In the short term we are trying to take part of the marquee and create a fan zone behind the Thatcher’s Stand.

“We still have to apply for a licence and then we can move part of the marquee to behind the Thatcher’s to create a better environment.

“It’s a semi-permanent structure, but it will be better than what we have at the moment. Our goal is to have some form of fan zone.”

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Yeovil Town’s FA Trophy campaign came to an end in familiar fashion with an exit after penalty shoot-out for the second successive season.

Last season it was lower division Needham Market, this time around it was Dorking Wanderers – who are at least in the same division – but the result was the same, it’s concentrate on National League survival and the Somerset Men’s Premier Cup for Yeovil Town.

Here’s how Ian saw it…….

 

It wasn’t a game of quality in the final thirds. Yeovil were defensively strong (as per usual) and were barely troubled by Dorking going forward, whilst at the other end, Will Buse had a quiet afternoon stepping in for Grant Smith. Josh Staunton had Yeovil’s first attempt on target in the 70th minute with a header that was straight at the keeper. The Glovers rallied for a spell in the final stages, and thought they’d got it through Staunton but for an offside flag. We probably deserved the win on the balance of the second half, but without finding a goal we are always at risk of defeat.

We don’t like a penalty shootout. It feels like it’s becoming a bit of a thing now. We scraped through in the lowest quality shoot-out ever last season again W*ymouth in last season’s FA Cup, lost horrendously to Needham Market and yesterday we struggled again from the spot. The early work Mark Cooper did with building confidence will have taken a bit of a hit yesterday off the back of this, but what surprised me was who stepped up. Our usual takers Alex Fisher and Matt Worthington were off the pitch, but we had attacking players Malachi Linton, Charlie Wakefield, Andrew Oluwabori on for the shootout – but Jordan Drew Maguire, Max Hunt and Jamie Andrews took them. 

I’m not sure where the goals are coming from. We tried another combination in the attacking areas yesterday, with Chiori Johson in at left wing and Maguire-Drew on the right. Maguire-Drew looked like a player who hasn’t played a lot of football and although he added quality with his set pieces, he needs match fitness. Is a one-month loan enough to get it in? Alex Fisher, a mainstay in Cooper’s side so far, didn’t have his greatest afternoon and I wonder at what point we start Louis Britton. He’s been billed as a goal scorer who gets in the six-yard box which was what we were crying out for as the game wore on.

Alex Fisher battles for the ball. Picture courtesy of Mike Kunz.

The attendance yesterday has to be of concern. It was our first sub-1000 attendance for a first-team fixture for years. If we disregard SMPC and friendlies, the last time we played a first team fixture with less than 1000 supporters was in November 2018 against West Ham United Under-21s in the Check-a-Trade Trophy which was in the thick of a boycott of that competition across the country. Before that, we played Kingstonian in the Nationwide Variety Cup in April 2001 in front of 295. In the same season and competition we played Kettering in front of 709 supporters. In 1997, we played Boreham Wood in the ICIS Charity Shield with 873. Last season when we played Woking in the same round of the competition there were 1493 at Huish Park. Obviously, there were circumstances which would have led to that, the freezing cold, the late notice of pitch inspection, the last weekend before Christmas, but the level of drop off is a damning indictment of the progress (or lack of it) at the club.

Survival is all that’s left to play for. With defeat yesterday and no FA Trophy run on the cards now, all that’s left to play for next season is survival. On Friday’s podcast we spoke about how a cup run would give us a lift and something to get excited about in a season which has provided very little in the way of excitement. Alas, the “drama” of the penalty shootout put an end to it in the first hurdle and all we have now is to hope we have enough quality to remain a National League club.

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Morgan Williams said Yeovil Town’s players must “stick together” after their exit from the FA Trophy at the hands of Dorking Wanderers.

The defender said the squad were committed to turning around their woeful record in front of goal as they failed to find the net in normal time of the third round tie before going out 4-1 on penalties.

It means the Glovers have scored just three times in 450 minutes of football with two of them coming in the Somerset Men’s Premier Cup win over Taunton Town.

Speaking to BBC Somerset’s Sheridan Robins after the Dorking defeat, Williams said: “We have to stick together as a team, we can’t go against each other. We defend as a team and we as defenders have to be scoring more from set pieces which we have said numerous times.

“We have to stay switched on and keep listening to the Gaffer, Toddy (assistant manager Chris Todd) and the staff about where to be when set pieces come in and we have to be the ones who put the ball in the back of the net.”

However, the clean sheet means they have only conceded twice in their past six matches – with one of those coming against Taunton – and the goalless draw in the Trophy tie was their fifth clean sheet in that run.

Morgan added: “I feel confident. As a back line I trust the players next to me whoever I am playing with, we trust each other as a team defensively.

“We know that if the ball comes in to our box we are going to defend it, but we need to do it at the other end, if the ball goes in to their box we need to score.”

 

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At a time where there’s not much football on, only one of the Glovers loanees got some game time on Saturday.

Ollie Haste got 90 minutes for Truro.

They lost 1-0 to Dorchester Town with a first half goal the difference between the two sides.

All other loanees saw their games postponed due to the weather.

Toby Stephens and Ollie Hulbert were scheduled to be part of the Plymouth Parkway squad away at Barnet in the FA Trophy (note… Stephens has played in the Trophy already, but Hulbert’s participation wasn’t guaranteed – but we guess he can now become available as his parent club are out.)

Benjani Jr hasn’t yet kicked a ball for Sherborne, whilst Will Dawes return to Stratford town has been stalled by the weather.

Most sides have games midweek as the fixtures begin to pile up.

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Yeovil Town manager Mark Cooper said his side did not get what they deserved as they went out of the FA Trophy after a penalty shoot-out loss to Dorking Wanderers at Huish Park.

The spot kicks – which the visitors won 4-1 after misses from defender Max Hunt and midfielder Jamie Andrews –  followed a second successive goalless draw and the boss admitted that his side’s inability to find the net was putting them in peril.

Speaking to BBC Somerset’s Sheridan Robins after the exit, the manager said: “We didn’t get what we deserved today which was to get through to the next round, but we can’t score goals.

“It’s another clean sheet for us and if I was a defender, I would be saying ‘we keep the ball out of the net, any chance you could score a goal.’

“If we weren’t creating chances, it would be a worry so as a group whether it’s a centre half from a corner, a midfield player, a number ten, a wide player or a centre forward you have to put the ball in the net.

“Once we got on the front foot in the second half, we were all over them – but we just can’t score. We have to get on the front foot, there’s a real apathy about us at home and somehow we have to turn it around.”

The Glovers mustered just a single shot on target in the 90 minutes with a further five shots off target while the visitors failed to give goalkeeper Will Buse an effort to deny – until the shoot-out.

But, Cooper said he believed there was enough in the performance to give his strikers chances to score.

He added: “When you look at the stats, they don;t lie, we have the worst attacking record in the league. If you are a goalscorer you would watch that game and be rubbing your hands together as the crosses coming in to that box because you know you will have two or three gilt-edged chances to score.”

The boss confirmed that defender Owen Bevan, who has impressed on loan from Premier League AFC Bournemouth, had “blacked out for a second” after a clash of heads with team-mate Morgan Williams after 41 minutes.

The boss said the club would be “governed by concussion protocols” ahead of their next match, the Boxing Day trip to Torquay United.

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Grimsby Town have confirmed that Jordan Maguire-Drew has only joined Yeovil Town on a one-month loan – at the moment.

The Glovers announced the arrival of the winger on Friday saying that “personal terms have been agreed for the player to sign on a permanent contract during the January transfer window, subject to the completion of a satisfactory medical” whilst Grimsby referred to it only as a one-month loan.

Cue confusion about the long-term future of the 25-year-old who scored an extra time winner for the Mariners in last season’s National League play-off final.

The League Two side then issued a second statement adding: “In light of the contradictory statements regarding Jordan Maguire-Drew joining Yeovil Town, we would like to reiterate that his deal is an initial one-month loan.

“Although we can confirm that informal discussions regarding a permanent transfer have taken place between the two clubs, it is important to state that nothing has been formally agreed at this stage and Jordan remains under contract with GTFC.

“We would like to wish Jordan well during his loan spell with the Glovers.“

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Venue: Huish Park
Saturday 17th December, 3pm kick-off

Isuzu FA Trophy, 3rd Round

Conditions: Cold but clear
Pitch: Held up well after surviving a late inspection

Attendance: 962 (82 away supporters)

Scorers: None

Bookings:

Yeovil Town: None
Dorking Wanderers: James McShane 45

Referee: Gary Parsons

Yeovil Town (5-3-2)

Substitutes: Andrew Oluwabori (for Owen Bevan, 41), Charlie Wakefield (for Matt Worthington, 78), Malachi Linton (for Alex Fisher, 70) Lawson D’Ath, Louis Britton.

Dorking Wanderers: Lincoln, Philipot, El-Abd, Gallagher, Steggall, Mekki, McShane, Jebb, McManus, Taylor, Seager. Substitutes: Kennedy, Cheadle, Procter, Aubrey, Gale.

Match Report

Yeovil Town went out of the FA Trophy after a penalty shoot out for the second successive season as they went out at the expensive of National League rivals Dorking Wanderers.

After a toothless first half, the Glovers picked up the pace with a late flurry and thought they had won it when captain Josh Staunton turned the ball home, only to be denied by the assistant referee’s flag sending the game to penalties.

New signing Jordan Maguire-Drew scored the first spot kick, but Max Hunt and then Jamie Andrews saw their efforts saved by Dorking keeper Dan Lincoln – whilst the visitors scored all their four and go through to the fourth round.

Here’s how Ian saw it from his position at Huish Park…..

 

First half

Chiori Johnson started the game down the left, backed up by the returning Jamie Reckord, who missed the goalless draw with Scunthorpe United seven days earlier, with new signing Jordan Maguire-Drew starting down the right.

Alex Fisher played up front on his own supported by Matt Worthington, back after a one-match suspension, with Maguire-Drew and Johnson also pressing forward.

There was very little on show on the pitch to warm a chilly Huish Park

The opening stages lacked any real quality and but for a glancing effort from Max Hunt that wasn’t troubling the Dorking goalkeeper.

Hunt had another half chance from a corner which looped harmlessly over the bar.

Mark Cooper was forced until a change after Owen Bevan and Morgan Williams collided challenging eachother for a header. Bevan couldn’t continue and Andrew Oluwabori came on with Chiori Johnson moving to left wing.

 

Half time: Yeovil Town 0 Dorking Wanderers 0

Second half

At the start of the second half Yeovil had a good chance to grab an opener through Oluwabori. He opted to head the ball back across goal rather than towards it when it felt like he had time to pick his spot.

Matt Worthington should have opened the scoring in the 55th minute. An inviting cross from Jamie Reckord landed at Worthington’s feet in the box but he couldn’t adjust himself to direct the ball towards goal.

Alex Fisher made way for Malachi Linton in the 70th minute and he nearly made an immediate when he tried to get on the end of Oluwabori’s cross. Dorking cleared for a corner and from that Josh Staunton had Yeovil’s first effort on goal.

As the dreaded shootout loomed, a flurry of half chances fell to Hunt, Staunton and Linton but none could capitalise.

Linton had another good effort moments later, beating a Dorking defender and pulling a low shot wide of the post.

As time ticked away the action got a bit fiery with Yeovil looking more likely to get something and they thought they had it through Josh Staunton in the 90th minute but it was ruled as offside.

Yeovil huffed and puffed but couldn’t find a way through and the game went to a shootout.

Here’s how the spot kicks went…..

Dorking: Ryan Seager – scored (0-1)
Yeovil: Jordan Maguire-Drew – scored (1-1)
Dorking: James McShane – scored (1-2)
Yeovil: Max Hunt – saved (1-2)
Dorking: Jack Jebb – scored (1-3)
Yeovil: Jamie Andrews – saved (1-3)
Dorking: Bobby Joe Taylor – scored (1-4)

 

Full time: Yeovil Town 0 Dorking Wanderers 0 (Dorking win 4-1 on penalties)