Yeovil Town youngster Toby Stephens has had his contract extended after the Glovers triggered a clause to further his stay at Huish Park.
Stephens spent time on loan with Barnstaple Town and Hemel Hempstead this past season and had represented the first team in both the Somerset Premier Cup and a handful of league games including off the bench against Stockport during the 3-0 win at Edgeley Park.
Congratulations Toby!
No sooner had the 2021/2022 season finish, did the preparation for 22/23 begin and we have our first pre season friendly in the books.
Exeter, fresh from Promotion to League One will come to Huish Park on Saturday July 16th with a 3pm Kick Off and…
Plymouth Argyle will visit Huish Park on Saturday July 23rd, with a 3pm Kick Off.
Argyle are preparing for their season in League One as well and will take in other local games against Bristol City and Truro.
Ticket news will be made available in due course.
Avon and Somerset Police have handed a 3-year football banning order to a 29-year old man from Yeovil.
The ban applies to the FA Cup game between Yeovil and W*ymouth on October 16th, which ended in a 1-1 draw with the replay going the way of the Glovers a few days later.
In an update on a number of incidents, the Police Statement read that the supporter was convicted of possessing a firework, flare or pyrotechnic item “in relation his actions at Yeovil Town’s game at home to Weymouth Town on 16 October 2021.
A three-year football banning order was given to him.”
The statement does not give any more details as to whether or not the person was in the home or away end.
We are starting to spot a pattern.
Former Yeovil Town loanee and Millwall right back Dan Moss will line up alongside Luke Wilkinson for Darren Sarll in the defence of Woking.
Moss will sign a 2-year deal on July 1st.
Moss played a half season with the Glovers impressing on multiple occasions in the absence of Mark Little.
The recent Yeovil Town legends game was a huge success with the Glovers drawing 3-3 with a South West Legends side in a dramatic game at Huish Park.
Taylor Stansfield‘s late equaliser helped seal a come back from 3-0 down for the boys in green and white.
It also helped to raise a load of money for the Adam Stansfield Foundation.
There was a printed programme available on the day which completely sold out!
Now, organisers Abby Carter and Kev Gall have made the souvenir programme available digitally for anyone who may have missed out.
Drop YTFCGame@gmail.com an email as you’ll be sent a (rather large) file with all 50-odd pages of content including interviews with many of the legends on show.
Donations to the foundation are welcomed if anyone wishes to make one- click HERE and head to the bottom of the page and click the link, or make a purchase from the AS9 Foundation shop.
Check out Mike Kunz’s legends day gallery below, you can listen to the special legends day Gloverscast HERE or download wherever you get your podcats from!
So after the dust has now settled from the @ytfcgame anyone that is interested in getting this digital version of the programme, email us at ytfcgame@gmail.com
Any donations for this are welcome for the The @as9foundation @YTFC @OfficialECFC @HerefordFC @ElmoreAFC @gloverscast pic.twitter.com/vUq2hnvOHQ
— YTFC Game (@ytfcgame) May 22, 2022
With the news of SSDC completing their purchase of Huish Park emerging on Friday, it feels like a lifetime ago that Chris Hargreaves was announced as the new manager of Yeovil Town FC.
While he was not a favourite for the job in the eyes of supporters (58% of Gloverscast readers wanted Jamie McAllister) he was a name that was on the rumour mill in the middle of April.
Having left his role as Bristol Rovers Academy manager in February to pursue first team manager opportunities, it’s been reported that he was unsuccessful in applications for Oxford City and Woking before getting the Glovers job.
As he lines up his coaching team (a former Glover who’s “only gone and done it” is among the rumoured names), there’s a chance of some post-season freshness at Huish Park – in the dugout at least.
Hargreaves experience since ‘taking Torquay out of the football league’ (as the negative narrative is) has been largely focussed on youth football and the academy system at Exeter City, Bournemouth and Bristol Rovers. His history at this south/southwest triumvirate, within a commutable distance from Huish Park, is probably an indication of the ‘project youth’ strategy Yeovil be taking this season. And who can argue with it?
In his first interview with YTFC.net, Hargreaves said: “Youth development is vital. I said to the players that want to stay at the club, I want to improve them as all coaches and managers do. We want to help them go and play as high as they can. It’s something that is very important to me, they have to produce for the club but we hope to be able to help them along their footballing journey. We have to be as sustainable as possible, so we need to develop our younger players and if the rewards are right for the club and for the player, then brilliant. That has to be a major part of it because producing players is a big part of what a club is about.”
Despite the club’s ‘pretty healthy’ financial position mooted by the chairman, and the recent injection of circa £2.8m, (who’s laughing at the back?) with ever-dropping gates at Huish Park, it’s reasonable to expect the budget will not see signings like Darren Sarll’s first season.
If we’re in the market for young, hungry players who’ve been let go from Rovers, Exeter and Bournemouth we should try and get ourselves to the top of the pile. Hargreaves’ connection with these clubs will hopefully provide Yeovil with a good pipeline of loans and an opportunity to sign some free agents.
Picture courtesy of Mike Kunz.
As we await our released and retained list, we’ve secured the most important player in Josh Staunton. His leadership within the squad is obvious and as the standard bearer of the dressing room, he will set the bar for those remaining and those joining. If the core of Staunton, Grant Smith, Morgan Williams, Max Hunt, Tom Knowles and Matty Worthington stay, that’s a good base to build a squad from.
While Hargreaves wasn’t everyone’s first choice, I was impressed with his first interview with the media. He spoke positively about the club and genuinely seems excited at the opportunity to manager our club. Despite the news which broke on Friday afternoon, I’m cautiously optimistic about the freshening up at Huish Park under his leadership.
The Glovers Trust have released a statement today saying the long term future of Yeovil Town FC is at risk, following the completion of SSDC’s deal to purchase Huish Park and the surrounding land and lease it back to the club.
The statement reads:
The Glovers Trust note the sale and leaseback agreement announced by Yeovil Town and South Somerset District Council (SSDC) yesterday, the 20th May. We continue to be concerned that the crucial assets of the club have been stripped away from the fabric of our club. For the first time since the 1930s we no longer own our home. We are worried, that this deal has placed the longterm future of our club at risk.
We are disappointed that limited public consultation with fans by both the South Somerset District Council and the Football Club took place. To state that public consultation took place back in 2020, and that the situation remains similar, seems unreasonable considering the landscape of football, the club, and society as a whole has shifted dramatically since then. We are also disappointed that the immediacy of the deal being completed was not made clear to fans and supporter groups.
Notwithstanding the actual sale of the club assets itself, the Glovers Trust have a number of concerns and questions around the terms of the deal with SSDC. Although not an exhaustive list, these concerns include:
Many of these questions are the same questions we asked back in 2020 and failed to receive adequate responses. We hope to meet with Scott Priestnall soon in order to ask those questions and share those concerns. If members have questions or concerns of their own, don’t hesitate to get in touch with us.
In December 2020 the Trust board activated the Asset of Community Value held on the site, triggering a six-month moratorium period and preventing the sale.
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This morning Yeovil Town fans woke up in the knowledge that our club is no longer the owner of the ground on which Huish Park stands.
It may well have been the case for a number of days (weeks?) before 2pm on Friday afternoon when South Somerset District Council (SSDC) and the club announced that a £2.8m deal had been completed for the council to buy Huish Park and the land around it and rent it back to the club.
Nearly 32 years after we moved in, we are now tenants in the place we call ‘home’.
So what do we know about the deal? Well, the statement from chairman Scott Priestnall spoke about why the sale was required and what the money would be used for, and SSDC gave its views on the deal.
Their respective messages were consistent – the club lost huge amounts money throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, it needs a cash boost and a way to unlock the land at Huish Park for development to safeguard its future.
Having read through it all, there’s a couple of comments on both sides I felt were worthy of further inspection:
Scott Priestnall: “The deal provides valuable funds to the club, in what has been a very difficult period financially and operationally. We utilised all government schemes available to us during the pandemic, but unfortunately those funds did not meet our ongoing cash requirement, never mind allow us to grow.”
There’s absolutely no question the pandemic was a hugely difficult time for all businesses and our football club was no exception. As the chairman rightly says, it furloughed a number of employees to cut its costs to the bare bones, took advantage of grants available to clubs, benefited from more than £50,000 raised by its supporters through a Crowdfunder and has borrowed almost £1m from Sport England. What is an interesting question though is the contradiction between the chairman’s statements from a little under a month ago that the club was in “a pretty healthy” financial position. If that is true, why do we need to sell our only true assets? As one supporter put it, on the face of it it’s a bit like selling your car to pay for the petrol.
Scott Priestnall: “The funds will help pay for costs incurred during the pandemic such as deferred payments with some of our key partners and deferred salaries to our incredible staff and players who accepted a reduction in wages during lockdown when the club could not operate.”
If there are individuals or business the club owes money to, it can only be right that this ‘windfall’ enables these debts to be met. No question. However, what of the other debts? We know we owe Sport England £998,538 in monies that, only a couple of weeks ago the Chairman said the Sports Minister was “working to get written off“. So, unless his view on that situation has changed in just under a month, one assumes those debts will not be paid.
So what of the £1.35m the chairman borrowed from Poole-based lender MSP Capital to complete the purchase of the club back in 2019? In the words of Somerset Live back then, the move by Priestnall to secure the loan he took out against the club’s land assets “effectively acts as a mortgage against the stadium.” At that time, he spoke about the loan as “a facility to help us move forward with the land” – a similar reason to given yesterday to justify the sale to the council through the removal of “restrictive convenants” which have prevented land around Huish Park being developed – it all costs money, right?
Scott Priestnall: “When I first came into the Club, I saw the opportunity to grow this already amazing Club into an organisation off the pitch that could provide revenues all week, not just on match days. While I had very positive conversations with local planning, developers and funding partners, the pandemic delayed our options to grow, at the same time causing huge financial difficulties to our ongoing operations.”
There’s no doubt that Scott Priestnall, like his predecessors Norman Hayward and John Fry, see value in unlocking the value of the Huish Park site – and who could argue with the principle of developments which could create a long-term, sustainable income for the club? Certainly not me, it’s worked for clubs up and down the country and the lifting of covenants on the use of the land seemingly frees the club up to do so.
What could development look like? The simple truth is we don’t know and won’t know until the club unveils its “long-term vision for Huish Park” which the chairman says will happen “over the next year“. One insight came from the Glovers’ Trust back in March 2021 when it published a map showing a ‘Concept Plan’ of potential development of the land which showed the entire car park developed for flats and houses, accommodation for players alongside the current 3G pitch, alongside at least one shop, a sports clinic and a hotel.
I welcome the money raised by the sale enabling the club “to sensibly invest in required maintenance work and our playing squad” whilst paying down the debts it has incurred due to the pandemic, but if we are expected to pay an annual rent to SSDC, how is the development of the Huish Park site going to help us do this?
A hotel, shop or sports clinic paying a regular rental to the club or social facilities able to bring a seven-day-a-week income would achieve this. But simply building and selling property – whether houses, flats, shops, hotels or alike – is a short-term strategy which does not answer the question of – who pays the rent?
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“It is important to remember that it is not the council’s intention nor desire to play any part in the running of the football club, which will remain a matter for the shareholders. Our interest is to help with the club’s survival, generate a new rental income, while protecting our ratepayers from loss or excessive risk.”
Not the chairman’s words this time, but those of SSDC’s Portfolio Holder for Economic Development, John Clark, the councillor for Yeovil Summerlands.
A number of councils have pots of cash waiting to invest in schemes they will be profitable for them and, as organisations not seeking to make a quick profit, can invest for the long term. When its District Executive signed off the £2.8m investment in December 2020, the council confirmed it would “provide a yield of around 7%” which was “line with the approved target level of commercial returns.” Speaking at the meeting which decided the deal, then-Chief Executive Alex Parmley said: “We’re not spending money on a football club or giving them taxpayers’ money – we’re investing in the land. We’ll have a significant land asset with a value at the end of it.” To put it simply, this deal is good business for SSDC.
In his statement, Scott Priestnall spoke about how there would be “those that put a negative spin” on the deal. He – and maybe you – may think this blog is an attempt to do that. I would argue there is no more “spin” in his blog than in the club and council’s own statements. Questions are healthy in any democracy – the chairman himself said just under a month ago that he had “no problem with criticism” and therefore I am sure will have no issue with my questions. They are asked out of a desire to see the club thrive, that’s all any fan wants, right?
Picture courtesy of Tim Lancaster.
When I was first becoming a Yeovil Town supporter, the club made its move from Huish to Huish Park, under the stewardship of then-chairman Gerry Lock. It was a move which almost sent the club under due to long-running planning enquiries, the rising cost of land – many other things which have been the subject of podcasts, if you are interested- listen here. Lock’s vision was to create a stadium and facility which was the envy of clubs all over the country – and he did, but almost at a huge cost.
Is this decision Scott Priestnall’s ‘Gerry Lock Moment’?
In “the next year” we have been promised sight of the long-term vision for Huish Park and, if this ultimately benefits the football club, you’ll hear no complaints from me. Like so many things, we’ll just have to wait and see.
Just one week ago, nearly 2000 Yeovil, Exeter and South West football fans came to Huish Park to celebrate the life of Adam Stansfield and raise money for his foundation.
In the build up to the game, the Gloverscast trio joined a host of local reporters, Yeovil fans and hugely respected YTFC people came together to put together a programme, however one article didn’t make the souvenir programme.
Below is my chat with Andy Lindegaard, who had amazing memories of the sides with which he played across many, many years of success.
It’s fair to say that being a Yeovil fan from 2000 onwards was a special experience, a decade of unprecedented success with the teams from 2002, 03, 05 and 07 all living long in the memories of a Glovers fans.
We can only imagine what it would have been like to have been on the inside through it all, but one player and one player alone did the best of both worlds.
Andy Lindegaard was a Yeovil born, Glovers fan who had been part of the local football from a young age and have been in the youth team under Stu Housley and Maurice O’Donnell before breaking into the first team in 1999 and playing for the next eight years through so many top teams, he spoke to the Gloverscast’s Ben Barrett about how it felt to be part of multiple teams who found success at Huish Park.
When Gary Johnson joined, he inherited a team that was close to success but hadn’t quite landed the big one, Lindy says a little sprinkling of quality was all that was needed.
“When Gary came in, he added a bit of quality, Lee Johnson came in, (Colin) Milesy and Steve Collis, those were the three I remember from the first day of preseason. They’d come from the Football League and had a little bit of experience, but it was more just the team spirit we had together. Anything we did, everyone wanted to win each time. It’s that attitude that helps bring success”
2001/02 culminating in a Trophy Final was a special occasion for Lindegaard, but it was just the start of the journey
“We were at the start of riding that wave, I remember going to Villa Park and the whole of Yeovil was there, it was something special.”
After that, the team conquered the conference and League Two with so many happy memories.
“It was a winning mentality, we had a lot of pace, it was attack, attack, attack, the fans were spoilt!”
“One of my best memories is playing in front of Huish Park when it was jam packed full, we used to get six or seven thousand every week.”
Lindegaard still has the match ball from his hat trick against Gravesend and Northfleet kicking about in the garden and the medals are framed up and on display for family and friends to enjoy, his only ‘what if’… not playing as a striker a bit more.
“I wish I played up front more, but we signed Kevin Gall so I didn’t get a look in.”
Fast forward to 2007 and things had changed. Johnson had left, Slade had come in and yet the success continued with the League One play-offs.
Slade, he says, was different to Johnson in the way they approached management but both got results.
“Gary was more of a shouter, he liked to encourage players that way, Russell Slade was more of school teacher-ish”
“Russell wouldn’t overload the players with information, but Gary had his own form of data analysis, it was ticks and crosses as we sat and watched the games back.”
Lindegaard was quick to take up the offer to come back and play in this game for the Adam Stansfield foundation, because of who Adam was, and he knew before most that Stanno would go on to be great.
“Stanno always had a smile on his face. I actually played in the game where Gary discovered him. For the reserves, against Elmore. It was a cold, rainy night, luckily I wasn’t playing in defence, so he didn’t run me ragged. I remember playing in that game and he turned up to training the next Monday”.
The rest was history.
From struggling to find somewhere to train with the reserve side to finishing his 8-year stint at Wembley Stadium in 2007, Andy Lindegaard saw it all happen around him and he hopes that for one more packed out Huish Park will wrap up the story nicely.
“As soon as they mentioned this game, I wanted to get involved. I’m really looking forward to it, I haven’t seen a lot of the players in a while, I keep in touch with a couple of the lads, it’ll be good. Some of the lads who are coming back never got to play with Stanno so it’ll be good to see teams from across the generations”
When asked who would win between a 2003 Yeovil side and the 2007 Glovers team, it was close, but he reckons the Johnson side would have just about edged it.
“I’d probably say the 2003 team would win, but, the 2007 team was the highest we’d ever been. That team was full of quality, but my instinct says that Weasel (Darren Way) and Lee Johnson would make the difference”
Those sides come together today to take on the South West XI, the best of both worlds!
To donate to Andy’s blonde hair Just Giving page Click HERE
To listen to the Gloverscast’s Legends Game Special Click HERE
To take a look at the Gloverscast Photo Gallery of the day courtesy of Mike Kunz, Click HERE
To visit the website of the Adam Stansfield foundation and make a direct donation, Click HERE
Earlier today, Yeovil Town FC and SSDC confirmed that the £2.8m sale and leaseback deal of Huish Park was completed. You can read all about that here.
This deal is not without controversy, with plenty of supporters taking to social media to make their views known either way.
But, we’d like those of a green and white persuasion to answer the question below.
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